Sweetcorn

[Derry]

The mother and i got some today, 23 plants for £2.99, im quite chuffed with that. Theyre about a foot high and looking quite healthy, but i want some growing tips for them.

Ive just read on a website that they hate clay soil... our back garden is primarily clay.. so how do we rectify this? will it be a huge digging jobby, mixing in lots of compost?

Also, they should be grown in blocks shouldnt they, so how many to a block?

Aaaaaaaannndd, could they be grown in those big urn type pots? We're low on ground and the mo, and we havent yet heard about the allotment =[

Any other advice/tips/help welcome ^-^

[Millymollymandy]

This current thread might help

http://www.selfsufficientish.com/forum/ ... 12&t=14317

As for blocks, as many as you like I would imagine! (think about a field of maize ) but no, you can't plant sweetcorn in a pot because the plants are way too big and will fall over in the wind! Well I guess if you used a huge at least 2 foot width and depth pot, and staked it like you would for pot grown tomatoes, then tied the stake to a downpipe or something, it might work. But that's one plant per pot!

[Peggy Sue]

Well I've grown sweetcorn in claysoil, it had had manure dug in but they took to it better than say carrots & broccoli that just wanted something a bit juicer.

26 would make a fair block I think! So long as the wind will give them a fgair chance with polination then the block is OK and lots of people grow less than that as far as I see on the allotments, including me!

I agree with MMM, they really do grow big so pots would be blown over , you are better off digging in as much compost as you can and planting them out, at the end of the day they are just fancy grass so it grass will grow then...

[Derry]

could growbags be used instead?

also, to a mod type person.. could this thread be merged with the other sweetcorn thread? =]

[Millymollymandy]

Aarrgh no cos it's too complicated, it will take me ages to try to remember how to do it and I can't be bothered.

I think you'd have similar problems with growbags - there wouldn't be enough depth of soil for their roots and they still might blow over. It might be worth a try though with some of them, though they might not grow as big as they would in the soil. But even if you only get one cob that will be better than wasting them.

This is how big they get in a good year:

Sweetcorn.jpg (175.42 KiB) Viewed 1672 times

[Derry]

haha, alreet =]

we grew some a few years back and they got to about 5-6feet tall, so mebbe i should just dig up the front lawn

[wolfsong]

Hehe, you'll be sewing two pairs of trousers together next, whilst your neighbours look on in disgust

[Derry]

they already do that, no biggy =D