I managed to harvest these from 4 plants (I believe to be minipop variety)
As you can see they aren't really in an edible condition anyway, having been nibbled through by what I presume was a mouse or other type of rodent. (I used to have pet mice for years, and this really looks like they're kind of nibble).
Most of them had chunks bitten out somewhere, and discolouration. Its hard to tell in the photo but they were actually quite green. I stripped off all the lady noodles, and reckon they'd never got properly fertilised because they were just too perfect inside the cases (the noodley parts that is).
The final size compared to my hand. Pretty poor! But considering they were unfertilized I guess its not that bad, as least it formed something! Its certainly been interesting and next time I won't bother trying it in large pots, and just put them straight in the ground!! This, believe it or not, has been my most successful attempt thus far at corn. Previously I've managed 2 ft tall plants but never any kind of flowering happening at all. So at least I'm getting better at it!
Next season I'm going to try the same varieties, because they have had the best germination rates for me so far for sweetcorn (I had one that WASN'T treated this year, and I assume it has some natural fungal resistance because it never had a fungal issue, and I find it germinated much better and faster than any of the treated seeds I've used before). I'm also trying out Strawberry Popcorn next season, which looks gorgeous to grow.
Anyone have any advice on corn growing for my next try?
Our corn wasn't exactly a success this year either.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame, because I really love to eat it! It also seems that the minipop survived to this stage, while all of my full-size corn didn't make it past seedlings which is a bit sad. I'll just have to keep trying!
ReplyDeleteI had my best year with corn on the allotment this year, though it still wasn't brilliant. I used to have more success growing it in containers.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. Did you use a particular type of soil in the cibtainers Jo? I have recently been digging up the garden to make raised beds and discovered that below the surface the soil here is very clay like. I would obviously be adding my own top soil to the beds but I wanted things to be able to expand down and I know not everything can do well with clay. What size of containers did you use for your corn?
DeleteI used multi purpose compost in the containers. The containers themselves were large buckets. I planted two plants to each container and then arranged the containers so that they were in a block as corn is wind pollinated.
DeleteI always grow in blocks too but I think my containers may have been too small and they ended up rootbound
DeleteRozzie, all the advice I have read about growing corn says that you should grow it in dense blocks - preferably square (e.g. 4 x 4 plants or 6 x 6) so that the female tassells get fertilised whichever way the wind blows. Pollination can be improved by tapping the stalks firmly when the male flowers open, distributing the pollen onto the "lady tassells" lower down. All this presupposes that the male flower does in fact open... (maybe he just wasn't in the mood?)
ReplyDeleteYes I always grow it in blocks but usually it never reaches flowering for some reason (often fungal or poor germination issues). This time the germination was excellent, but the male flower never opened properly (maybe he's gay?) so the ladies were never pollinated sadly.
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