Aug 26, 2008 5 min read

It just isn’t summer without fresh sweet corn! We’re fortunate that there are local farms that grow sweet corn, making it easily accessible in grocery stores and at roadside produce stands. But nothing beats corn fresh from the garden to the cook pot, and delivered to the table within minutes.

I was talking to a friend of mine just the other day about growing corn in the home garden. It’s easy to grow, but it has its challenges, too, for a number of reasons.

Corn is a warm-season crop and some years it’s great and others it’s not, depending on the weather. One year there’s so much rain the seeds rot in the ground; another year the ground is too cold for germination; other years bring other complaints about germination. A suggestion from my sister, Carolyn, solved that problem for me about five years ago-she suggested I pre-start my corn seeds in the house.

Corn was always one of those plants I learned were not transplantable, like beans, so I never thought about pre-starting corn transplants before. On a commercial scale it certainly is not practical, but for my home garden it was not unreasonable, so I tried it. I reused the six-cell packs my spring bedding plants came in. I filled them with seed starting mix and poked a corn seed in each cell. I knew how much space I had in my garden for corn, so, on a day in late May, I planted as many as I thought I could use and a few extra-as germination is never 100 percent.

Lo and behold, the corn seeds germinated and sprouted in the warmth of the house under my grow lights. Within a couple of weeks the corn plants were tall enough to transplant into the garden. By using transplants there were no holes in my rows, and my corn crop had a head start over anything I might have planted from seed in the ground. Also, I had no worries about the ground being too wet or too cold for germination. Every transplant made it.

Since then, I pre-start my corn in the house every year.

Another problem with corn is getting good pollination for full ears. Commercial farmers plant long rows of corn, so many home gardeners mimic that, but they only plant two rows because that’s all the space they have. Unfortunately, what we’re forgetting as home gardeners is that the commercial farmer’s long rows are also in large fields where there are many, many rows to help ensure natural pollination occurs effectively.

In the home garden it’s important to plant many short rows, or plant corn in groups, such as several concentric circles. I usually plant several short rows, placing each transplant 12 inches apart along each row.

There are other challenges with corn, too, like worms and beetles and smut (a fungus). And if you grow different kinds of corn you want to avoid cross pollination. But, I don’t worry about those things very much. My garden is large enough that I can rotate my crops, yet small enough for only one kind of corn at a time.

There are many kinds of sweet corn to choose from: yellow, white, bicolor and multi-colored. I like the yellow as well as the white, but I prefer the bicolors and multi-colored hybrids for their aesthetic qualities.

There are so many great descriptions in the spring seed catalogs I usually try a different kind of corn each year. And, because hybrid corn seed does not save well from year to year, it’s easy to keep trying new kinds.

Hybrid sweet corn’s ancestry goes back to primitive forms of maize, which originated in South America, most likely in the Andes in Peru. Eventually this early corn made its way north into Central America, where it crossed with another kind of corn relative, which was then crossed back with maize. From there a variety of corn hybrids arose that spread up into North America. Throughout the Americas native Americans cultivated maize, but the popularity of corn really didn’t kick off until the mid-to-late 1800s.

Today sweet corn is categorized into three types based on genetics: standard sweet corn, sugary enhancer hybrids, and supersweet hybrids. The supersweets are sweeter, but not as creamy as the other two types. Sugary enhancer hybrids are considered the “gourmet corns of choice” for the home garden. Days to maturity vary by hybrid and the weather, but once you see the silk strands beginning to appear you’ll have about another 20 days to wait.

My corn is just a few days away from being ready. I can tell because a raccoon has already been sampling a few ears.

I’ve read that raccoons like corn in the early milk stage, just before it is ripe. This raccoon is being true to that, so today my husband set up a solar-powered electric perimeter to deter further nighttime raids by this furry marauder. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it works. The corn is looking especially good this year, so I’m not willing to give it up to the masked bandit without a fight.

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Susan Brimo-Cox gardens, observes nature and writes in Ohiopyle. Readers can send questions or comments to her at naturesgarden@brimo-cox.com.

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