All About Growing Sweet Corn

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Everyone loves sweet corn — why not plant your own? KEITH WARD

Isn’t it time to make mouthwatering sweet corn one of your hit crops this summer? Sweet corn requires warm soil (above 65 degrees Fahrenheit) so early summer is prime planting time. To stretch your harvest season, grow both early and midseason varieties.

Types to Try

• Open-pollinated varieties offer traditional corn flavor, but rapidly convert sugar to starch, so they must be picked at just the right time. They often require less fertilizer than hybrids, and seeds can be saved from year to year.
• Kernels of sugary-enhanced hybrid varieties remain sweet for a week or more, and feature tender texture combined with rich corn flavor.
• Super-sweet hybrids produce exceptionally sweet, crisp kernels good for freezing. Super-sweet varieties must be planted at least 30 feet from other types of corn to prevent cross pollination, which ruins their flavor.
• Synergistic varieties have a balance of sugary-enhanced and super-sweet kernels.

Check out our handy chart of sweet corn types and varieties, including descriptions and growing tips for each.

When to Plant

In late spring or early summer, sow seeds in warm, fertile and well-worked soil that contains plenty of nitrogen. Sow early varieties one to two weeks before main season varieties for a longer harvest season. Many gardeners sow their early sweet corn when apple trees are in full bloom.

How to Plant

Thoroughly mix in a 1-inch layer of fresh grass clippings, compost or well-rotted manure along with alfalfa meal, soybean meal or another high-nitrogen organic fertilizer (follow label directions). Sow seeds 1 inch deep and 4 inches apart, in blocks of at least three rows spaced about 24 inches apart. Thin early varieties to 8 inches apart; thin taller midseason and late varieties to 12 inches apart.

Harvesting and Storage

Once an ear feels plump and full when you squeeze it, pull back the shuck near the tip and pierce a kernel with your fingernail; it’s ready to harvest if the juice is milky.

Try to harvest corn in the morning, when the ears are cool. Refrigerate them immediately or put the corn in a cooler and layer it with ice. Sweet corn can be canned in a pressure canner, but most people prefer the speed and convenience of freezing. Blanched corn off the cob takes up much less freezer space compared to whole ears.