Double Red Sweet Corn

[Silverleaf]

Aren't they!

[PhilaGardener]

Waiting to see those beautiful ears! Looking really nice!

[jayb]

Me too! But the weather is lousy here at the moment lots of rain and drizzle, I'm not so sure there will be a good set.

[jayb]

Gerrr, I can see a couple of chewed cobs

[Galina]

uh uh! That's bad. Any ideas who was the culprit?

[jayb]

At a guess, field mice or voles. I'm going to be a bit grumpy if I can't get to harvest some seed!

[Galina]

How are they doing now?

[jayb]

I've harvested lots of cobs for seed, not fully ripe but the mice were really starting to tuck into them. Fingers crossed they seem to be drying quite well and the last few sunny days I'm laying them outside. I've been meaning to post some pictures, will do later. By the feel of them some have poor set, we had quite a wet and windy patch for a while, others feel great. From the few I've looked at, the colour on the corn is amazing and my fingers were stained red from the sap.

[Galina]

That red? WoW! Hope you got a really decent harvest of cobs.

[Galina]

Just wondering, can cobs be harvested at the fully eating ripe but not dry stage, then eaten bar the bottom inch or so where the stalk is attached? This way collecting 50 or more ears for seed would not be such a chore. Otherwise so much corn is resulting in way more seed than anybody could ever need. If the shortened bottoms of cobs could dry satisfactorily to viable seed, then corn would be one of the happy 'eat and seed' crops.

[jayb]

I don't know, I've not tried but I don't see why it couldn't be done like that? Must admit I don't worry too much at the excess, it makes an ok feed for the chooks, though they seem to prefer yellow and it might not be as nutritious as maise-corn. I'm hoping to grow Double Red again this year if I can get my timings right, I've got some more seed from a different source which I thought I'd like to combine and mingle. It's a lovely sweetcorn, though a bit later than I had supposed.

[clumsy]

I fell in love looking at those pictures of sweetcorn plants. I can't wait to grow mine this year. Plus also growing black mexican just for fun as well.

[Admin]

Great, I'm looking forward to reading your progress. Are you planning on a large sweet corn patch?

[clumsy]

I was thinking of just doing one large square patch with three different varieties (double red, black mexican and the yellow variety we grow) but I know that they can cross pollinate which will make seed saving an issue.

[jayb]

Yes if you want to keep the seeds pure, but by letting them cross pollinate you you can keep the genepool healthy with a lower number of plants. Plus think of the fun selecting for and growing out your own sweet corn mix next year

I'm pretty sure I grew Mexican Black last year, but it was just a little too late to do very well here in the summer we had last year. But I'm hoping some of it's genetics have been incorporated within the coloured sweet corn mix I've been growing.

I think you are going to love Double Red!

[Silverleaf]

Those colours are so amazing! Love the idea of red corn. I'm going to try some red corn I got from the Pass the Parcel swap - Red Lady- which I think is the F3 of Ruby Queen with some other se types.

I love the idea of mixing up different colours, that sounds like so much fun!

[jayb]

Red Lady, I can't remember off the top of my head, I'll have to have a check. What colour are the seeds are they mixed or red?

[Silverleaf]

Seeds are light red, and really wrinkly. I didn't note where it was from originally, but the label says there's some white and yellow se types in the ancestry.

[jayb]

Sorry I assumed they were from one of my breeding mixes as the name Red Lady is familiar. I'll have a rummage through my mixes later and check.