[shoozie]

Swift here - after promising I'd never try again ....... And now I remember why I said that last year and the year before.  Fast running out of 'summer'  again and only now showing the first silks.  Oh well .....

[Poolcue]

First year of growing sweetcorn this year.I started Headstart F1 in modules in may and planted out in early June.I am getting 2 or 3 cobs per plant.I had my first cobs last week.The taste was amazing and i wish I had planted more of them.

[Cake Lady]

Swift does seem to be the favourite then  .  I've just had a look on ebay - I'd never thought of buying seeds on there before.  Think I'm off to buy a few things and not just sweetcorn!

[mumofstig]

better to wait til the spring for fresh seed.

It can be difficult to get old seed to germinate 

[DD.]

At the risk of repeating myself, if you need seed in quantity or can share with others, have a look at Moles seeds.

For example on ebay 50 "Earlibird" sweetcorn seed will cost £1.58, an extra 72p at Moles will get you 5 times as many.

http://www.molesseeds.co.uk/flower_and_vegetable_seed_store_uk/Products_F1_Earlibird_4236.html

[gavinjconway]

The ones from Birdseye are no more than about 18 inches and definitely no crop coming from them

I put in 3 packets of birds eye and they have really grown well.. silks starting to dry off now and cobs swelling. Plants are about 5-6' high.

My mini pop has done exceptional.. 5-7' high and huge cobs 7" long x 1" diameter!! .. note to self - must start picking younger cobs!!

My Rising sun and Golden Bantam are also 5-7' high and doing well.... Pollen falling like crazy now.

[JayG]

better to wait til the spring for fresh seed.

It can be difficult to get old seed to germinate  

Totally agree - many seeds have very good storage qualities but in my experience the viablity of F1 sweetcorn seeds drops off quite dramatically after the first year.

I once had problems even with supposedly fresh seed (I'd love to hear an insider's account of how honest and rigorous some of the seed suppliers are, but suspect I might be in for a long wait.)  

[Cake Lady]

better to wait til the spring for fresh seed.

It can be difficult to get old seed to germinate 

Didn't think about that!  The minipop that i've grown were out of date by a couple of years - i must have been lucky!  Good job I didn't get around to buying any this year as I'll now wait!

[Goosegirl]

I have germinated successfully sweetcorn that were 5-6 years out of date and didn't realise that others had problems with them. I only used ordinary compost, pots and in an unheated greenhouse starting in mid-late April.

[angelavdavis]

better to wait til the spring for fresh seed.

It can be difficult to get old seed to germinate 

Didn't think about that!  The minipop that i've grown were out of date by a couple of years - i must have been lucky!  Good job I didn't get around to buying any this year as I'll now wait!

My experience is that minipop seems the exception.  I started off 40+ seeds for Swift this year initially and only a couple germinated, so I repeated the process with limited success.  All seed was newly purchased.  Out of desperation, I bunged in an ancient packet of minipop and got almost 100% germination rate! 

[leeks r us]

grown swift this year in polytunnel good results with the crop but hav been plauged with black fly.