Sweet corn tasteless

[David Hare-Scott]

I am a fairly experienced gardener but this is my first year growing sweet corn. The plants are all well grown, the cobs are large and the kernels are full and juicy. But the taste is quite poor. It would be less than half an hour between cutting and cooking. I have been sampling some every few days for a couple of weeks but the result is the same, the texture when cooked is heavy and chewy (despite the kernels looking good) and the flavour is bland and not sweet (despite the variety being supposedly very sweet).

So what's wrong? Is it too young, too old or some other thing?

David

[Boron Elgar]

What variety did you plant?

Boron

[David Hare-Scott]

Kelvedon Glory which is an F1 hybrid.

David

[Dwayne]

Next time you cook some, add a cup of sugar to the water you boil it in and see if that will help. It does sometimes for me. It doesn't answer your question, but might make it taste better.

Dwayne

[GA Pinhead]

I would go for too much water followed by not enough. We have had a few early corn crops that way.

My dream would be to garden in both hemispheres in the same year, north and south.

John!

David Hare-Scott wrote:

[Boron Elgar]

That is a variety that *should" yield a sweet and fine textured ear, but sometimes the Garden Fairies just don't bless us. Somme years are great for tomatoes, some for corn (every darn year seems to be good for zucchini), some for the grapes...etc.

It might be almost anything, from the weather to the soil, to the time of planting, etc....the only thing I can recommend is not to use the same variety again.

Wish I could offer more advice.

Boron

[The Cook]

Pick it when the ears are smaller. They do tend to get gummy when they get too large. If you pierce a kernel with your fingernail does it squirt juice?

[farmerdill]

"Kelvedon Glory which is an F1 hybrid." I am not familiar with this cultivar. If it is a supersweet (SH2) cultivar, and it gets cross pollinated by any regular corn cultivar, The results are a tough chewy, flavorless mess. Supersweets have to be isolated.

[David Hare-Scott]

There is no other corn within a bull's roar so it must be self pollinating, thanks for the information all the same.

David

[David Hare-Scott]

I am starting to think that is the problem, if nothing good happens in the next week I will pull the lot and compost it, and remember to start cutting it sooner next year.

David

[Pat Kiewicz]

Even grown isolated, SH2 supersweets are (to my taste) not tender enough and not 'corny' enough, just very sweet. I prefer the SE varieties, especially bicolars, like Lancelot: more corn flavor, and very tender.