Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: gavinjconway on September 28, 2011, 23:03
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Hi all... I grew up an a maize / corn growing farm in Zimbabwe... hence I love what we called "a green mealie" - i.e. a newly picked corn cob and boiled like we do here with sweetcorn. The difference being the sweetcorn is a bit smaller (half the size) much sweeter and more tender.
Now that I have a plot (I move onto from Saturday 1 Oct) I want to grow it here. I live in Cheshire so can anyone advise me on the best seed to grow and approx spacings to use.
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well manured plot, plenty of water
use an F1 variety - Supersweet by Unwins is good, start off early under glass in 4" pots BUT plant out quickly when you can and dont let them get potbound
and PLENTY of sunshine of course
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I've grown Incredible this year, the seed of which is cheap as chips from Wilko. It's big and prolific and I'm dead chuffed with it.
I grow mine close together in a block about 14" apart.
Sweet Nugget is another I've done well with, and the flavour is fabulous (better than Incredible I'd say)
I microwave mine by the way, just for two or three minutes for two cobs, with all the foliage left on as it retains moisture so you get a very juice result :)
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DON'T start off early, or at least too early. I start mine mid April. If you plant them out too soon they can get set back by the cold from which they don't recover.
"Supersweet" from Unwins was a good variety, but they don't seem to sell it now. Their seed from other sources could well be old stock. That name is more used now to encompass a whole range of varieties.
If you are planning to grow in quantity, or can share or seed save, check out Moles seeds. For instance their F1 Lark seed even for their small packets only work out at about 1p per seed. Thompson and Morgan cost over 7 times that!!!
http://www.molesseeds.co.uk/flower_and_vegetable_seed_store_uk/Products_F1_Lark_4242.html