Kitchen Garden Forum

.... the leaves of the sweetcorn/mini sweetcorn plant are as sharp as a razor and sting like a paper cut .... go on, ask me how I know

VPM
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Dear VPM, did you test them on someone else to find out?

Sorry to hear that the Sweetcorn has been attacking you.

...meanwhile something has been attacking the "Incredible" variety at work...

.....so Sweetcorn is not a good word to mention in my earshot either....

Clive.

oldherbaceous wrote:Dear VPM, did you test them on someone else to find out?

Sadly no but it is nice to know I have an instrument of torture to hand

VPM
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Clive. wrote:Sorry to hear that the Sweetcorn has been attacking you.

...meanwhile something has been attacking the "Incredible" variety at work...

.....so Sweetcorn is not a good word to mention in my earshot either....

Clive.

Good grief!!! Any ideas at all as to who or what the culprit may be?

VPM
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PS Looking at what appears to be carefully peeled back outer leaves, my OH and I are thinking rodents - squirrels or rats?

I do hope the two are not linked, destroyed sweetcorn plants, and injuries received from sweetcorn plants.....

My suspect is Grey Squirrel.? The cobs are gnawed round progressively to gain access...just a few muddy paw marks on the flattened stems. They know when they are at their best as the later patch has only just been started...

Pheasants have been released in large numbers and are having an exploratory peck at everything....

In a few nights all the cobs have been eaten...unlike a previous very dry year when it was a total flatten and trash in one go....the suspect that year I feel was a black and white.?...

Clive.

some of my sweetcorn look like that too. The outer leaves looked like they had been put through a shredder and the corn nibbled away.

I assumed it was mice - but squirrels could be the culprit too.

at least we had managed to eat most of them before the critters struck.

Labradors like sweetcorn too, can't walk mine anywhere near maize fields at this time of year, mind you, she takes the whole cob

Deer?

Hi Clive,
Some time back on one of the forum reincarnations there was an article about Sweetcorn protection from squirrels and I think this was the advice.
Take a 2 pint plastic milk container and cut lenghtways down through the threaded portion and a little more, just enough to open out slightly, to slip over the Sweetcorn Cobs and wire or tape around the threaded portion when in position.
This seems advice when the horse has left the stable but maybe useful in the years to come.
JB.

Thank you for remembering this JB....I will stock up on milk. .. except we have sterilised in glass bottles.....
Now that reminds me,..the returnable bottles of 1 Pint have just been replaced with non returnable bottles of 500ml but sold at the same price as the 1 Pint..........

Grey Squirrels do seem to be a major problem these days. They missed the first picking of Strawberries this year and we got a few feeds ahead of them...then they suddenly remembered, passed the word around and took over the picking..
I suspect the problem has increased since the pheasant pens are no longer sited nearby.

Clive.