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Old 10-05-2003, 11:44 AM
Nick Maclaren
 
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Default Sweetcorn under glass

In article ,
Anthony E Anson wrote:
The message
from "icathro" contains these words:

I'm trying to grow Sweetcorn under glass for the first time. In Scotland,
you're lucky to get a crop outside and thought it worth a try.


Does anyone have any experience / advice ?


If you start them inside and plant them out when they are about 4" high
they shouldn't need glass. Not even in Dundee.

I grew them on the Isle of Lewis.


Where temperatures are not your problem. You can only just grow
decent sweetcorn in the south, and then only if you use short-season
varieties, because the growing season really isn't warm enough and
long enough. The reason that it succeeds is because most people in
this country eat it terribly underripe, when it is almost flavourless.

In Dundee, he should be OK if there isn't a late, hard frost, but
he runs the risk of one of those even in June. In Lewis, the chances
of a hard June frost are, er, slightly low :-)

The short-season varieties are bred to develop a lot of sugar in
low light levels and low temperatures, but that merely covers up
the lack of flavour. Like many people who grew up eating the crop,
I prefer even sweetcorn after the sugars have started to convert to
starch and the kernels are developing more flavour. But you can't
buy even supermarket sweetcorn like that here.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.