Sweetcorn germination tips required please!

[Chantal]

Thank you JB Sir, you can slap my wrist at Malvern for being thick. Now I understand.

[Tigger]

OOOOhhh. I hate it when he tells us off.

[Chantal]

You get used to it Tigger, I have.

[mandylew]

I pregerminate a lot of my larger seeds including swwecorn, I put them in a salad sprouter in the airing cupboard until they just begin to shoot, and that way I can plant them out the right way up as well. works for me.

mandy

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff and Chez,
I am with you on the sowing time as I shall not start mine off at least before the begining of next month. Sweet Corn is one of the plants that resents any sort of check in growth and if you can so time it so that the plants progress and are just filling the pot with root as you plant out.
The Commercial Maize growers on the next plot have not even started to plough yet. I realize that they are only growing for Silage but they do get some
super Cobs and they are a little lacking in the taste in comparison with the Supers and Sugar types but still make good eating never the less.

[Deb P]

Thanks for all the advice, amazingly the corn I planted very shallowly on Friday (tops level with soil) are showing some shoots already!

Perhaps it was a combination of sowing a bit later (though by this time last year I was hardening off sweetcorn in late April)and the surface sowing which has made the difference.

I still have a few seeds left, so I'm also going to try the 'sprouting ' method recommended by Mandylew and John too, thanks for those tips.

[Anonymous]

Well, Deb P, we have given the shallow covering of seed a whirl for the first time this year. So far germination of 18 out of 20 seeds sown, so shall certinly give this method another whirl next year.

Still on sweetcorn, but slightly off thread, has anyone grown the variety Minipop? I have bought the seed. Apparently you start harvesting when the tassels start to show, rather than when they are wilting.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

valmarg

[John]

Hello Valmarg
I tried Minipop last year. Never again! The plants are not 'mini' only the tiny little cobs. My plants grew well over 6' tall took up a great deal of room and at the end of the season were a real problem to dispose of. The cobs were a nice treat but difficult to catch at the right stage - leave them a little too long and they were horny and useless. Comparing the small amount of cobs to the size of the huge plant they were very unproductive.
I'd say that if you have a spare patch that you don't need for anything else and you want to try something really different then have a go but otherwise don't bother.

John

[Deb P]

I also tried Minipop last year, some in a half barrel, some in open ground. Both grew well, also about 6' tall, with 2-4 cobs per plant. However, I also had the problem of telling when they were ready, and concequently all of mine were left too long and were as hard as nails! Made a nice treat for the birds over the winter though...

[Anonymous]

Oh dear John and Deb P, that's a bit disappointing. I was going to try them in a spare bit of garden. Having bought the seed, I might as well grow them.

Thanks for the info.

valmarg

[Geoff]

I shredded my Sweet Corn stems last year for the first time - made quite a nice pile of compostable (or is that ible) material.

[Johnboy]

Hi Geoff,
A few years ago my neighbour who was then a Dairy Farmer had some Maize Silage that went off and smelt peculiar and I had two trailer loads (farm) dumped into the Orchard and I covered with black Polythene and pegged it down and left it for two years and in that time it had made the most wonderful compost just like soil.
Sadly it was that family entity that the Badgers put paid to and now they are no longer in farming.

[Mr Potato Head]

Here's the link to the KG issue for growing sweetcorn...

www.classicissues.com

You can search our archive, but I'm afraid it doesn't contain any back-issues prior to the Mortons takeover...

[Compo]

I sewed Kelvedon Wonder last week in peat free compost (composted bark from B & Q) in modules watered them every day in the unheated greenhouse and every seed seems to have little green shoot on today, so maybe it is the drainage that they need as this compost is quite coarse....Not sure how they will taste however, look forward to that in a few months.