Plant sweetcorn

SWEETCORN

Nothing says summer in the patch quite like sweetcorn. At my place, it’s one of the few crops that truly handles the extreme heat, humidity and soggy downpours of our subtropical summer. In fact, it goes berserk in those conditions, producing sturdy stalks that rise high above the ground. Look at them for long enough and you’d swear you can see them growing!

But it’s not only the heat and moisture. These high-growth achievers also need a high-performance diet. I throw everything at them. When prepping the soil, I’ll toss in a few good buckets of compost and a couple of heaped handfuls of poultry pellets and rock minerals per square metre, work it in, level with a steel rake, and water well.

I normally direct-sow corn, but if a few days of wet weather are predicted, which can rot seed, I’ll start them in cell punnets (pictured). Corn should be planted in blocks to ensure even distribution of pollen, which means lots of kernels on your cobs. I mark out a minimum of three rows 60cm apart, with plant spaces of 25cm in the rows.

Sow seed 5–7mm deep, with 2–3 seeds per hole. Water in well, and wait for the soil around the seeds to dry off before re-wetting. Shoots appear in about 10 days. Remove excess shoots, leaving one strong, healthy seedling per space.

Corn seed has a very short period of viability, so if you have a packet that’s been sitting around for a couple of years, toss it out and pick up a fresh pack, to avoid disappointment.