Jamie’s Little Allotment: Gayton-based gardener on harvesting sweetcorn

In his weekly Jamie’s Little Allotment column, gardener Jamie Marsh discusses harvesting sweetcorn...

An extra layer has been needed in the garden a few times this week, and I’ve also found myself darting for the greenhouse once or twice because the heavens opened without warning.

There’s not really been any transition from summer to autumn, it’s more like someone has just turned the big season switch, temperatures dropped, rain returned and I’ve started seeing leaves falling.

Even though autumn has hit hard this week things are still doing well in the allotment.

I won’t list everything I’m harvesting at the moment because it’s quite a comprehensive tally, but there is one particular veggie that has just come good this week, and it really is a close second to tomatoes, of my favourite things to grow and eat on the plot.

The delicious edible I’m raving about is sweetcorn.

There are a few things that can be enjoyed as an allotment day snack, straight from the plant, and sweetcorn is definitely one of those.

I get people asking me all the time: “How do you know when a corn on the cob is ready to eat?”

It’s quite simple really.

I’ve seen people unwrapping the cob while it’s still on the stalk, peeling back about eight to 10 leaves so they can get a glimpse of the kernels, to see the colour, then once they are in, sticking their thumbnail into the corn to see if it’s nice and juicy.

This rigmarole really doesn’t have to happen, the easiest way to see if your sweetcorn is ready to pick is to just look at the silky tassels which are coming from the top of the cob, if these tassels are very dark brown and going a bit crispy it’s ready.

If they are the slightest bit green, leave that particular cob for a few more days.

When you do find one with brown slightly crispy tassels, take hold of it and bend it down and it should come away with a nice snap.

Now this is where I struggle sometimes, I should take the cob into the house and think of a recipe to cook it with, but a lot of the time I just peel back the leaves and sink my teeth into it there and then.

I’ve eaten sweetcorn from the supermarket forever, and yes they were really nice, but until I actually started to grow my own, I really didn’t know what a fresh-from-the-stalk sweetcorn tasted like.

Sweet really isn’t the word for it - so sweet and so juicy and the taste is indescribable.

As soon as the cob is detached from the mother plant, it starts to change.

The sugar starts to change to starch which is why there’s nothing quite like fresh corn on the cob.

One more quick thing about corn on the cob, if when you have picked your cob and then peeled it, you find that it almost looks like there are some kernels missing, there might well be.

The reason this can happen is, if you remember the silky tassels I was talking about, each one of these tassels is joined to one immature kernel, each one of these tassels needs to be pollinated.

Sweetcorn isn’t pollinated by bees or butterflies, it’s wind pollinated, as the wind blows it shakes the top of the neighbouring plants which releases the pollen from the flowers and it floats down onto the tassels, pollinating the cobs, so if at any point there are any silk tassels which haven’t been pollinated you will get a gap in the kernels.

The way to combat this is to, on a dry warm day go round and tap the flowers and watch the pollen float down to the cobs, or even as you tap the flowers catch some pollen on a piece of paper, then gently scatter it into the silk tassels, in turn making sure there’s good pollination of all the kernels.

I’m not sure how I’ve just spoken about sweet corn for the whole column, but next week I’m going to talk about lawn care in the autumn.

If you have any garden or allotment questions, please feel free to email me on Jamieslittleallotment@gmail.com