Sorry for this stupid question!

For the first time in many many years I've grown sweet corn.

I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)

Thanks


--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Roger Tonkin wrote:
I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

That would indicate they are probably ready. Only way to know for sure is
to open one up and try it. If you dig your nail into a kernel it should
come out creamy, iirc. But mostly I just take a bite. :-)
Ours are just about ready. They're very poorly pollinated this year,
though. :-(

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)

IME, you need to pick them "when they're ready", so there's not a log of
leeway of leaving them on the plant. (We did that last year cos I kept
telling Nick they were ready and he kept ignoring me, and they ended up hard
and unpleasant and full of earwigs)

On Sep 10, 11:54*am, Sacha wrote:
On 2011-09-10 11:31:48 +0100, said:





Roger Tonkin wrote:
I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

That would indicate they are probably ready. *Only way to know for sure is
to open one up and try it. *If you dig your nail into a kernel it should
come out creamy, iirc. *But mostly I just take a bite. *:-)
Ours are just about ready. *They're very poorly pollinated this year,
though. *:-(

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)

IME, you need to pick them "when they're ready", so there's not a log of
leeway of leaving them on the plant. *(We did that last year cos I kept
telling Nick they were ready and he kept ignoring me, and they ended up hard
and unpleasant and full of earwigs)

And don't add salt to the cooking water because - apparently - that
makes them tough, too. *A greengrocer told me that years ago!
--
Sachawww.hillhousenursery.com
South Devon- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I always used to cook them by buttering them then wraping in tinfoil
then cooking in the oven.
When we were in Egypt I saw them being cooked whole, husk and all over
a charcoal fire on the roadside, like a small barbacue..

Sacha wrote:
IME, you need to pick them "when they're ready", so there's not a log of
leeway of leaving them on the plant. (We did that last year cos I kept
telling Nick they were ready and he kept ignoring me, and they ended up hard
and unpleasant and full of earwigs)
And don't add salt to the cooking water because - apparently - that
makes them tough, too. A greengrocer told me that years ago!

I don't tend to salt the water of any veg anyhow. Although Nick does, I
discovered the other day when he actually made the boys' tea the other day.
It was horrid.

In article , wrote:
Sacha wrote:
IME, you need to pick them "when they're ready", so there's not a log of
leeway of leaving them on the plant. (We did that last year cos I kept
telling Nick they were ready and he kept ignoring me, and they ended up hard
and unpleasant and full of earwigs)

And don't add salt to the cooking water because - apparently - that
makes them tough, too. A greengrocer told me that years ago!

I don't tend to salt the water of any veg anyhow. Although Nick does, I
discovered the other day when he actually made the boys' tea the other day.
It was horrid.

As far as I know, only Thibetan tea is normally made with salt,
and it's reputation certainly is that all westerners find it
horrid!

But, actually, reasonable amounts of salt in the water doesn't
make sweetcorn tough - it's age that does that, though I much
prefer the riper and less sweet cobs, having been brought up on
maize.

The problem with maize in the UK is that it doesn't ripen fully,
and leaving it after September will merely let it shrivel. It
needs a lot more sun than we get, and we need special short-season
varieties to grow it at all. That's why it was so rare until a
few decades ago.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

wrote:
I don't tend to salt the water of any veg anyhow. Although Nick does, I
discovered the other day when he actually made the boys' tea the other day.
It was horrid.
As far as I know, only Thibetan tea is normally made with salt,
and it's reputation certainly is that all westerners find it
horrid!

:-P
Dinner, then, you damned southerner.

But, actually, reasonable amounts of salt in the water doesn't
make sweetcorn tough - it's age that does that, though I much
prefer the riper and less sweet cobs, having been brought up on
maize.

Perhaps not. But salt in veg water does make it yucky. Unless it's being
cooked with potatoes, rice or pasta, IME.

In article , wrote:

I don't tend to salt the water of any veg anyhow. Although Nick does, I
discovered the other day when he actually made the boys' tea the other day.
It was horrid.
As far as I know, only Thibetan tea is normally made with salt,
and it's reputation certainly is that all westerners find it
horrid!

:-P
Dinner, then, you damned southerner.

Er, no, supper :-)

But, actually, reasonable amounts of salt in the water doesn't
make sweetcorn tough - it's age that does that, though I much
prefer the riper and less sweet cobs, having been brought up on
maize.

Perhaps not. But salt in veg water does make it yucky. Unless it's being
cooked with potatoes, rice or pasta, IME.

Not in mine. We almost always do it, unless we are going to preserve
the water for other uses.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Roger Tonkin wrote in
:

Sorry for this stupid question!

For the first time in many many years I've grown sweet corn.

I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)

Thanks



I think it's all down to what you want to do with them. Cook, freeze or eat
raw.

When ripe they give off a sugary sap when partially skinned/ peeled and you
give a kernel a prick. Eat now raw or cooked or freeze.

Or you can do as my friends who grow them do as below.

When they are young and the tastle has gone brown, and the cob looks big
enough to pull, just peel and eat them, nibble the yelow bits without
cooking. They are absolutely delicious and sweet. Obviously everything else
goes into the compost heap/bin. Empty cob and all its greenary.

Baz

On Sep 10, 10:33*am, Roger Tonkin wrote:
Sorry for this stupid question!

For the first time in many many years I've grown sweet corn.

I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)

Thanks

--
Roger T

700 ft up in Mid-Wales

Ours are OK right now.
We cook them in the microwave in a lidded glass oven dish with a
little water to stop drying out too much.

In the bitter cold dry American Winters they often harvest in spring
but not a good idea here.
They can be blanched and frozen on the cob. It's hard to remove the
seeds undamaged from the cob in the semi-ripe condition we eat them
in.
Take up a lot of freezer space.

"Roger Tonkin" wrote

Sorry for this stupid question!

For the first time in many many years I've grown sweet corn.

I can not remember how you tell when it is fully ripe and ready for
picking. The tassle thingy has gone brown right down to the plant, so is
it ready now?

Can they be left on the plants until required or do they need picking
and storing/freezing (obviosly they'll need picking before the frosts!)


Normally when the rats have eaten it all overnight you realise it was ripe.
:-(

If you pull the covering off and stick your nail into a nibblet the liquid
should be milky if it's ripe. If so, it all has to be picked straightaway or
it will turn to maize and only good for cattle feed.
To freeze it you have to blanch it well to kill off the enzymes which will
try to turn the sugar to starch so making them less sweet. Best done
straight away too, the enzyme starts working the moment it's picked.

Do hope you planted yours in a block and not in a row, they are wind
pollinated so in a row if the wind blows across the row nothing gets
pollinated much and you get scrappy cobs.

--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Bob Hobden wrote:
Normally when the rats have eaten it all overnight you realise it was ripe.

Arrgh, you're making me really regret that i dind't get to the allotment
today, will have to go tomorrow and harvest the corn!!

Janet wrote:
Without separating the cob from the plant, gently unpick a bit of the
sheath at the tassle end.If it's ready, you should see a cob full of
uniformly plump grains of corn almost to the distal end. If the individual
grains are rather concave and boxy looking, they probably aren't quite
ready (if you haven't had much rain, HA, giving the roots a heavy watering
can help plump up the cobs). If your cobs look plump, press a thumb nail
into one, if ripe it should ooze creamy liquid .

I think it's worth noting that if you have poor pollination, they're not
ever going to ripen to that lovely plumpness, so you can end up waiting for
them to plump up without any hope, which results in a very small, tough,
barely edible cob.