[swaine]

Thanks everyone for the comments and advice. Next year I'll plant half the plants a bit earlier, and the other half about a fortnight later and upwind of the first lot. Perhaps even a bit of vertical mesh to reduce the wind.

I might even sneak out when the neighbours aren't looking and stroke a few tassels!

Before we move on to something else, has anyone had any reasonably consistent success up north with a particular variety of sweetcorn? I chose Swift because it was supposed to be OK, but are there better ones for us Northerners.

[realfood]

I have grown Swift for the last few years in Glasgow, with great success. As it is a tendersweet variety, it is one of the best for eating and it is early.

[Cazzy]

We picked our first three of the season last night for dinner.

They were fully formed, around 8/9in, with no missing kernels (except for the very tip) and sooo very tasty.

I'm sure the secret is taking a stick to them    I hit each plant with a stick to aid pollination.

Last years crop were not so good but it was due to pollination issues rather than location or sunshine.

[digalotty]

Do you mean "kernels"? 

ha ha im not good at spelling

[Cazzy]

Do you mean "kernels"? 

ha ha im not good at spelling

Normally I'd say no one cares but the Spelling Police do patrol here at times lol

[DD.]

You forgot a full stop.

[Yorkie]

It's not about being the spelling police, Cazzy - it's for search purposes, so that when people use the search facility, they may find the right helpful threads!

[Cazzy]

You forgot a full stop.

 

  I needed that DD, thanks.

[Cazzy]

Sorry Yorkie, I thought the laughing icon at the end of DD's post meant we were not being serious.

[DD.]

We're not deadly serious, but John does like us to correct spellings of words that people may use in a search.

I've just been correcting a spelling in another forum, problem there was that it was in a thread title and has been carried down in all the replies.

I normally don't say anything, but I've perceived that digalotty actually has a sense of humour & wouldn't mind me having a bit of a smile!

[Yorkie]

Sense of humour 

Didn't know that was part of the job spec 

[Kristen]

I surprised that your Swift is not easily completing the season in time as we harvest Outdoor Swift from seed some on 7th May and planted out 3rd June and harvested 8th August, so I would have thought you could get a crop by End August?

My last batch was sown on 12th June and planted out around 1st July and is just cropping now.

All grown in newspaper pots and ready for planting out 3 weeks after sowing (before the roots get too vigorous!)

Keeping them reasonably sheltered so that the pollen lands on adjacent plants, rather than in the next county!, will help.

I only ever expect to get one-cob-per-plant from Swift - the plants are so dwarf that there aren't many vertical axial points for the cobs to form on, and anything that tillers rarely produces a proper cob.

[JayG]

All true about Swift Kristen, although mine usually seem to promise up to 3 cobs but the average always turns out to be nearer 1, hence the successional planting theory.

Were your later batches grown near enough (and upwind of) the earlier ones to possibly improve pollination of the later-appearing silks?

[Kristen]

Yes, planted upwind (by chance, not good planning! but noted for future years).  Mine all seem to pollinate well, but the garden has decent sized trees on the prevailing wind side, so not very windy in the veg patch.

[bigben]

As usual, gardeners offer different advice. My experience in Sheffield over the last two years is that I have only managed one useable cob per plant and plan on trying to get them started a bit earlier next year. I did have a problem this year and managed to kill off quite a few by forgetting to water them over a long weekend while they sat on my windowsil so I had to start again. As I had used most of my corn I resorted to using two half packets of left overs and they have not done as well as I hoped.