Ok...what did I do wrong with this sweetcorn?

That's very poor pollination  

Obviously it was windy/or wet/or cold when the tassles were releasing pollen............

It has been a bad year for sweetcorn

Did you grow in a row? or in a block, which increases your chances of a good set.

Luckily we had a couple of fine weeks when my corn was producing pollen, gave it a good shake every day to move the pollen about.
Picked 2 dozen large full cobs this morning with loads more to come !
This was in a raised bed 2m x 2m.

am very jealous! I love sweetcorn and all mines like the photo, will have to free up a veg bed for some next year, am slowing learning what grows well and what dosen't in my garden...

Sweetcorn need plenty of sun, water and good soil to grow well - I think that it would be very difficult to get a good crop from a container no matter how big. Good luck for next year.

I recently learnt something about sweetcorn that made me understand the pollenation process a bit better.

Each one of the hairy tassels is connected to a kernal, so each tassel needs to get a dusting of pollen to give a full cob.

Just made me give them a good old tickle each time i passed.

Although each plant only produced one cob, they were all fully formed and deeeeelish!

Just to clarify..the pollen bearing bits at the top of the plant are called tassels...the bits at the top of the cobs are called silks 

Excellent, thanks everyone, I have learnt so much about sweetcorn now, next year i'm going to grow them at the sunny end of the garden in the veg bed and shake there tassles every day!

This is my first year of growing, and about half way through the year I realised that I'd made a rookie mistake and planted out about 5 different varieties of sweetcorn in the same area! Apparently the cross-pollination between varieties impacts on the production of the kernels. In fact, as a result, I was so paranoid that when the male tassles arrived, I picked one off the plant and dragged it across all the silks of the female cobs - as a result so far (touch wood), the ones I've picked have been ok, with just a few spots where there has been an obvious error! Did you just grow the one variety?

This is my first year of growing, and about half way through the year I realised that I'd made a rookie mistake and planted out about 5 different varieties of sweetcorn in the same area! Apparently the cross-pollination between varieties impacts on the production of the kernels. In fact, as a result, I was so paranoid that when the male tassles arrived, I picked one off the plant and dragged it across all the silks of the female cobs - as a result so far (touch wood), the ones I've picked have been ok, with just a few spots where there has been an obvious error! Did you just grow the one variety?

That was me last year    So disappointing nt have either sort to eat.

This year was much better but I'm not going to say too much as so many people have had nothing