Okay I’m harvesting ears now, unfortunately a raccoon has found the cornfield and has been hitting several stalks per night. I will likely go ahead and harvest the majority of it now as most of it is very close to eating ripeness.
We did a taste test on the first 4 years harvested, the mostly yellow cobs were favorites of everyone. The darker the color the more the texture seems to toughen, or perhaps they needed more ripening time, but the milk test showed them to be ready.
The raccoon attacked the corn stalk with all the tillers and surprisingly there were edible little ears in them, and two regular sized ears of corn. I plan to keep the mini ears and the others separate, but will save seed from both.
Overall my experience growing this has been amazing and all my farming friends are in awe.
They get tougher the more they ripen. Some of the more colourful might have tougher skin naturally, but they also just get tougher as they ripen. Bottom picture those look a little past their prime for sweet corn. If they were tough that might be partially why. Others look like they are close to perfect eating ripeness. Personally I think it’s perfect when the very tip is not fully developed. Once tip starts to get full bottom start to be little thougher, atleast if that variety has tendency to get tough early. Commercial varieties resist quite well, but even they can’t be that long.
Yes, you are right, I went ahead and picked 95% of them today. A little over 100 ears total so far, today’s picking was around 45 lb. I’m going to save seed from the biggest prettiest cobs, and the ones that are already over ripe since early ripening is a trait I prefer anyway.
As a general rule I think any time corn has developed significant color it is a bit past prime to eat as fresh sweet corn. A little blush of color is OK but much more than that and you’re on the downhill side of flavor and texture. Except for yellow of course because that color is on the inside of the kernel.
Wait, so I’m supposed to pick the corn before it has color? With mine I just waited till the silks turn brown then started checking them. Most of the Corn we tried tasted good, but the corn with hardly any white or yellow kernels was generally not as good. I’ve got 61 ears ears drying for seed.
Oh are they ripe enough for seed if you picked them in the sweet corn/milk stage?
That’s super exciting to hear! Somehow i thought they had to be left on the plant like dry shelling beans until dry and crispy, didn’t know that they would be viable at this stage!
Corn seed reaches viability at about 18 days after pollination. The earliest stage that people that love tender corn eat it comes in around 25 days. Astronomy Domini develops some color by then.
I prefer corn to have robust color and flavor, so I don’t pick it until about 35 days after pollination.
There are so many types and variations in corn and a lot of course is personal preference. I like corn that tastes like sweet corn, emphasis on both words. I’m also pickier about flavor and texture I suppose than some. That’s probably because of my own prejudices and nostalgia.
I grew up with the hybrids NK 199 and Silver Queen and an even older non-hybrid variety that I believe to have been Aunt Mary’s. I’m not entirely sure that color actually has anything specifically to do with flavor but all of those lack color entirely, except for in the endosperm. NK 199 is yellow; the others are white. They are all what is known as “su” corn.
From what I understand all corn develops sugars in the young kernels that then converts to starch as it matures. Sweet corn has a genetic makeup that delays that conversion. In those old kinds that I prefer that delay is brief and the window of opportunity to have a perfect ear of corn is a few days at best. The conversion to starch also is drastically accelerated as soon as the ear is picked. In my house, sixty years ago there was some truth to the saying of “have the water boiling before you pick the corn”. You also of course, have to know exactly when the window of opportunity to harvest is open, which admittedly isn’t easy.
Another kind of corn known as “se” has genes that delay the conversion of sugar to starch a bit longer so the window to harvest is a bit longer as is the time to cook it, and like “su” if it is picked and cooked appropriately can make for a perfect, nostalgia compliant ear of corn. The newer kinds they have now like synergistic or whatever they call it are certainly sweet but don’t taste like corn to me.
When I was growing landrace style sweet corn, I found those two, the “su” and “se” mixed together were also fine. When I added in colored corn like Astronomy Domine and older ones like Hooker’s Indian sweet, Black Mexican and so on I found them also to be fine corn but when I tried waiting to see anything but a slight blush of color before picking, they lost the nostalgic flavor and texture, but like I said, I’m picky with my corn.
When it comes to saving seed, while it is perhaps viable early on, I prefer to leave it to dry naturally as much as possible. I think it makes for a more durable and healthy seed that stores longer and produces a more robust seedling the next year. I sometimes pull up whole stalks to free up space in the garden and transplant them all into one big hole, or even just tie them in a bunch to the fence and bury the roots in soil and mulch. Left on the stalks and with the roots kept well-watered the ears go ahead and finish just fine that way.
I appreciate all the info. Like you I grew up eating the same varieties and prefer them myself. I like to harvest all my corn at the same time, and honestly if I left it on the stalk the raccoons would just get most of it anyway.
Over time this method of harvest and producing viable seed will by default be part of what’s been selected for. That’s the biggest reason I’m doing landraces, so the plants have to adapt to my habits, and I don’t have to follow specific “best practices.” I’m too laissez faire for that.
Sweet corn has to be all harvested at the same time because if planted at the same time it’s all ready at the same time. And unless you’re going to freeze it or something it has to all be eaten at the same time. While it doesn’t actually spoil, that wonderful flavor and texture is on an hourglass timer.
That’s partly why I moved away from growing it as a landrace. That and I don’t have room for it. It’s easy enough to counter genetic depression by crossing varieties but it still takes more space than I have available since unlike other types of corn you can’t save it for seed and eat it too.
I tinkered with the notion of indeterminate sweet corn and think it might be doable using teosinte and selection for multiple and productive tillers. I think something along those lines might be what Alan Kapuler and his family already did with some of their corns. Check out this variety offered at Peace Seedlings
"Cornucopia Bush Sweet Zea mays 50 seeds / 6.00 Many years in the making. Bush Sweet corn, each seed is best planted 2 to 3 ft apart and the plants grow multitillers and thus many more cobs per plant. Also great for intercroping with Oca, potatoes or summer planted greens:lettuce, arugula… Plants produce burgundy to carnelian colored seeds with 3 to 5 tillers and 6 to 12 cobs per plant; depending on fertility. Cobs mature over a sequence of multiple weeks giving you a longer harverst with one planting. Delicious raw or cooked and beautiful. A multigeneration project:a decade of breeding by Peace Seeds and another decade of breeding by Peace Seedlings"
If I was going to go back to landrace sweet corn, I think I might start there. But alas I just don’t have the energy and space for it.
Very Cool! It’s not that big of a deal for me because we don’t eat much corn. I mainly just grow things for seed now anyway. I don’t eat many carbohydrates and I swear I had more of a sugar rush from this corn than from the muskmelons.
Just wanted to share this pic somewhere. My Floriani Red Flint corn aka Spina Rosso della Valsugana has gotten huge! I have never grown this before so wasn’t aware it would get this tall! Glad I am not trying to handpolinate anything, i can’t reach the top by a few feet!
This all has me briefly inspired to share the ongoing Milpa here - 7 varieties if flour corn, 7 varieties if bush beans and 2 crosses of vining tepary, and 7 varieties of C. pepo including my F3 of ‘Candystick Delicata’ x ‘Table Queen’ cross.
Four consecutive frosts June 19th-23rd. Many many days in the mid 30’s at night - i routinely get 50 degree F differentials. Several hail storms - the last golf ball sized hail off and on for 45
minutes. Soil substrate is 6 months of chicken bedding ‘composted’ in place layer upon layer with bio-char/ neem meal/ Azomite/ Basalt Dust added as I added more straw. Pre-inoculation method. All this atop cardboard atop a massive weed bank of Canada thistle and willow weed.
Anyhow, miles to go. Grateful for where these plants are today. This mountain valley could choose to claim these plants for Her own at any time. Hopefully, she shows Her grace this summer.
My sweet corn this year is about half the height of last year, due to being so cold in June.
Planted late April.
I’m assuming I will just get little cobs which will be especially cute.
I love this patch. Lots of runner beans and Fig Leaf Gourd.
Julia, does that spacing give you adequate pollination? I plant my rows much closer together to ensure the pollen gets where it needs to go, but perhaps I don’t need to? (My entire corn patch is overrun by beans and is one impenetrable jungle atm) Or is your climate perhaps extra windy and that helps with pollination?
