Sweet Corn is the BEST!

The old heirloom varieties of sweet corn that we plant are tall and gangly.  In fact rains and accompanying winds lean it over and from time to time I have to go out and stand it back up and then, with a shovel and a bit of dirt piled around the base of the cornstalk, I’m able to get it to stand upright again.  We rotate varieties every year, but this year we planted Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn.

Lean on me, when you're not strong...

As the corn tassels, the silk is a beautiful, brilliant red. 

That's a good-lookin' redhead!

At this stage the corn is beginning to mature as the tassel is the male flower of the corn plant and the silk is the female flower.  The tassel grows pollen and drops that pollen.  The silk receives that pollen and is fertilized.  Each silk strand, if fertilized, will develop into a kernel of corn.  Any silk that is not fertilized will not develop a kernel.  You’ll see that in a minute.

Now you can tell that the corn is ready to be harvested when the silk becomes dry and brown like shown below as contrasted to the photo above.

Ripe and Ready

Time to pick it!  Here is an example showing where we pulled back the husks and silk and see some immature/unfertilized kernels.  Can you see the plump, juicy kernels on the bottom and the undeveloped corn at the top?

Some are great.  Some not so great

Now Benjamin and I have a little tradition that we started a couple of years ago in which we eat the first ear of corn raw, right out in the corn patch.  Here’s the first one:

Although the orthodontist might not be happy, Benjamin proved that you can indeed eat corn on the cob with braces!

So sweet.  So delicious.  It doesn’t get any fresher than this.  It didn’t take very long at all until all that was left was a well picked-over corn cob.

C'est tout!

I planted the corn staggered in stages so that I’ll have corn maturing at different times.  Benjamin and I finished picking a big tub of corn and brought it inside to shuck.  That’s normally an “outside job,” but man, it was hot outside. 

Aw Shucks!

This year we were pleased to see that we had absolutely no worm damage.  Zero. Nada. Zilch!  Normally when we shuck corn, we have worm damage, along with ant damage.   We were thankful for that.  Now of course we shared the corn stalks with the Jersey cows.  They had a feast!

Cows like corn, too!

But we had a feast, too! 

Hot, boiling corn on the cob

After eating some hot buttered corn on the cob fresh from the field, we blanched and froze some of the first batch so that we can continue to enjoy the sweet corn.  We’re looking forward to harvesting more so that we can make some Corn Maque Choux – our favorite way to eat it. We showed how we made it in THIS POST.

Fresh Picked Sweet Corn is mighty hard to beat!