Kitchen Garden Forum

I put my sweet corn seedlings out out my mini greenhouse for a few hours today to harden off but have just discovered that the wind has bent over all the shoots about halfway up, to the extent of virtually snapping them all about halfway up. Are they now useless and should I resow, or will they recover and grow new "innards"?

Hello Primrose
Don't like to see postings slowly going down the list without any replies so I'll have go at this one. My guess is that they will recover well from a setback like this. Sweetcorn is grass-like in nature and growth is from the base rather than a growing tip so you should be OK. If you are in any doubt though there is still time to sow again as it will germinate very quickly even outdoors now.

John

PS I find the 5" root trainers ideal for sweetcorn.

I had this happen to my sweetcorn three years ago. They looked absolutely terrible for about two weeks, but they recovered. Not only did the tops keel over, many of them leant to over 45º. I was ready to start again with them but gave them a chance. They're a grass, so grow from the base and are able to right themselves. I got an excellent crop in the end, sweet and succulent. Summer's not summer without sweetcorn.

If any of my lottie neighbours are reading this they'll be sighing as our resident badger feasted nightly on last years sweetcorn,he worked his way across almost the whole site.I don't think anyone harvested more than a couple of cobs many of the plotholders are giving it a miss for a while.We are growing ours at home this year as our koi carp love it

Thanks for your comments. They're still looking pretty dead but I'll hang onto them to see what happens and have resown as a precaution.