[skewball]

Hello, need a bit of advice re sweetcorn.

I have just decided I want to grow some as an experiment (well, its all an experiment at the mo as its my virgin year!).

I will have space in my garden once the first earlies have come out so it feels sensible to get some sweetcorn in there (?)

I would prefer to grow some from seed which I now have or is too late and I should just get some plants from the garden centre?

Assuming it’s not too late to sow it means I need to sow them in pots while waiting for the potatoes. But, do I need special root-trainer pots or can I use some fairly deep 3 ½, 4 inch pots that I have with 2 or 3 in each?

My main concern is that they will get too big for the pots before the earlies have come out..?

Any advice much appreciated!

[prakash_mib]

you are not really late and probably in good time to grow from seeds. make some richies paper pots and get a good MPC and bung the seeds in the pots. Keep them on windowsill untill germination. and harden them off straightaway after germination and  in three weeks time voila... sweetcorn seedlings will be ready to be planted.
(and assuming your FEs will be for picking in 3 weeks time)

[JayG]

Plenty of time to sow them; will take from 5 days to appear, another week to grow a bit, and another week to harden off (and grow a bit more!) Total of about 3 weeks.

The thing to avoid with sweetcorn is disturbing their roots too much, so anything too small or more than 1 to a pot is not a great idea, although you might get away with it if they are really well spaced out.

Sowing individually in paper pots would be my recommendation (toilet roll tubes are nearly as good if you have any.)

[Runwell-Steve]

Not sure about the timing and whether it will be a bit late once you first earlies are out or not,  I suppose that depends on how far advaced your first earlies are.

As for pots, rather than root trainers I along with a number of people on this site use Richys Paper pots for starting off things like sweetcorn.

Take a look http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=11390.0

[prakash_mib]

Remember, I planned for the same thing for sweetcorn after FEs but the cold has setback my FE harvest a bit and potatoes and sweetcorns are greedy feeders so you wont be having much time to re-nourish the soil and should depend on growmore stuffs.
My sweetcorns are already planted in patch and i have put some dwarf french beans to go in after FEs.

[skewball]

Great advice everyone, thanks!
Looks like I will go for it with the paper pots and cross fingers that the timings just about work out.

Having not grown a bean before then I have no idea about the timing of my first earlies, they went in the week before Easter (just before a really cold few days we had) but are looking, if I do say so myself, () rather impressive at the moment so hopefully they are on schedule..!!


Dwarf beans.. oh no, something else to think about..!!!!

Great site btw, I have a quick look virtually every day and just about everything I am doing in my first year is based on advice in these four virtual walls – who needs books!!

[Aunt Sally]

I always use Richy's paper pots :

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=11390.msg145648#msg145648

Perfic

[lesley1322]

i wouldn't recommend using toilet roll inners as i did this earlier this month and because they are bottomless the roots came straight out the bottom and ended up getting broken which the seedlings DID NOT LIKE and they have now gone all brown and sad!! booo.. its all a learning curve though i guess, its my virgin year too. i've just replanted some more in... guess what... plastic drinking cups with holes in the bottom as they are quite deep. lets hope these are a bit happier