Giant Sweetcorn

Actually, this is probably not giant sweetcorn but more ‘normal’ sweetcorn. But wow, I wish my sweetcorn were this tall. Mine is about half the height of this one I found in Colorado. Sweetcorn really is a warm weather vegetable isn’t it? It loves to be baked in hot, hot sun and in the UK we just can’t offer that. But… I’m still hopeful that my Sweetcorn will give me at least one cob per plant. Anyone got any tips on growing bigger corn (apart from ordering some nice weather that is).

Category: Travel     Tagged:

13 Comments on “Giant Sweetcorn”

  1. I live & garden in Sweden, and some of my sweetcorns are that big! Germination was very patchy though, and a couple of the plants are only up to my knees. However the tallest ones are over 2 metres.

    I’m growing “Golden Bantam” and gave them plenty of horse manure and the sunniest spot I could find. The biggest plants have 2-3 cobs each on them … not quite ripe yet, I’m getting very anxious to try them!

  3. could try electric blankets and under ground heating?

  4. I know of one person( a friend of someone I know from my allotment) who grows theirs in an unheated greenhouse. It’s not a huge amount but apparently grows quite well. I believe they also grow beans in there as well.

  5. Sun, water, fertility. We plant climbing French beans among ours to get an extra crop and further boost fertility. R

  6. Growing in a greenhouse can be a good idea if you have one big enough. Another tip to help them grow bigger is they really appreciate being fed fortnightly with fertilisers designed for tomatoes so not too high in nitrogen, but high in potassium.

  7. I think you’ve done well to get any sweetcorn at all – people have struggled with it this year at our allotments. There was a strange month where everything seemed to be in suspended animation and the sweet corn bore the brunt of that. We got some massive cabbages and spuds, though. One of the joys of allotmenteering in Yorkshire, no doubt!

    http://www.mandysutter.com/reluctant-gardener-day-375-big-spud/

  8. My sweetcorn’s pretty pathetic this year, probably just one cob per plant compared to a couple last year. Needs more manure and feed I suspect, been a bit neglected this year plus the cold nights don’t help.

  10. I live in South Africa and we have fields and fields of HUGE sweetcorn! It’s probably the easiest crop to grow here and you’ll often see it growing by the side of the road. I’m going to try and grow it this year (if my hubby will allow me space among his precious flowers…!) and I’ll let you know how I get on. Check out my blog for updates!!! (www.weeds4sale.blogspot.com).
    BTW, you have a great blog site – I love just wandering around! lol

  11. I grow organically, on a modest scale, north of Atlanta where the temperatures have been hot enough this summer. I irrigate all my vegetables with harvested rainwater and, because of our semi-drought conditions, I had to prioritize and skimped on watering the corn. Result – fairly wretched specimens. So – lots of hot, hot sun but insufficient water. Hopefully, a better outcome next year. You can visit my activities at http://www.nutrac.info (Nu Trac for the new tracks I have taken with my life). I like your blog site.

  12. Wow, nice sweetcorn!

    I grew some mega huge sunflowers once that got up to about 2m tall. The only thing I could think of that made them so big was fertilising with Seasol (a seaweed-based fertiliser).

    I also planted some sweetcorn next to the sunflowers but they only grew to about 50cm tall after being overshadowed by the mega sunflowers and deciding not to grow any more. :-)

  13. I was reading the new Charles Frazier book recently, and he describes how Native Americans would grow beans up the corn to make best use of space and fertilize the ground. That might be an interesting experiment in companion planting.