If you’re growing your own sweetcorn to harvest corn-on-the-cobs, the key is to knowing exactly when to pick them for the sweetest, juiciest flavour. The advice for harvesting full sized, corn-on-the-cob sweetcorn is different to that for harvesting baby corn, so have a read of the below before you start picking!
For Corn-on-the-Cob Sweetcorn:
The Tassels:
The first sign to look for is the tassels at the top of the husks turning from blonde to a very dark brown/black as pictured above.
The Kernels:
Once the tassels have changed colour, you can carefully peel back the outer leaves from the tip of one cob until you can see a few kernels. Pierce your thumbnail into one of the kernels and if you see a milky liquid squirting out at you, it’s ripe and ready to eat!
Harvest the sweetcorn by pulling it downwards and it’ll come off fairly easily, or use secateurs to cut it off the stalk. Cook it on the same day for the best flavour!
If there are not many kernels on the cob, it is most likely that pollination rates were not high enough. Each tassel connects to a kernel inside the husk, and each of these needs to be pollinated for a full cob. Sweetcorn is wind-pollinated, which is why we recommend planting it in grids to improve the chances of pollination. If you had a low pollination rate this season, try again next year by planting in grids and planting them a little closer together – 30-40cm apart each way.
For Baby Corn:
Hopefully you planted Minipop Baby Corn in rows rather than grids, as this will lower the chance of pollination – unlike full sized sweetcorn, you want to harvest Baby Corn BEFORE pollination so that the kernels remain small. For this, you actually want to harvest the baby corn while the tassels are still blonde quite soon after you see the husks forming.