Hello everyone! I hope this post finds you well! August 7 was an exciting day with it being the first sweet corn harvest. Waiting for this day can drive one nuts! The anticipation around growing sweet corn can be mentally and physically challenging. Planting sweet corn seed and waiting for several days to see how well it comes up is the first thing, Then waiting to be able to till between the rows since the grass and weeds grow as fast as the seedlings. Then you have to pull up the grass in the rows and maybe do a little thinning since the seeder plants 2-3 seeds per hole. I usually wait for a while to thin to see which seed produces the best plants. Sometimes I may leave two, but usually one. Sometimes it is difficult to choose and I don’t like pulling up a good plant. Then, after a while, the corn has to be hilled up and the suckers removed. I usually do it at least twice, but because of the continual rain, the first planting was only hilled once. Come to think of it, the second planting was only hilled once, too. After the first hilling, the corn was fertilized. This year, all the corn was only fertilized once… It takes some work and a lot of waiting…

Not every stalk produces an ear, but the others seem to have two good ears.

On the first pass. I picked two 5-gallon buckets from the first double row. Sometimes with the first picking, I get anxious and pick several that could have waited a few more days…

A lady from church, who also grows ‘Incredible’, said her sweet corn didn’t have a single worm. Well, nearly every ear I picked had a corn earworm…

Hmmm… That’s likely from a small armyworm… Earworms get in from the top…

Well, no one seems to be at home…

Well, it either moved to the top or…

Oddly, there was no worm to be found… I think it fell off when I was removing the wrapper leaves.

Most of the earworms were a brownish color but some were greenish…

NICE!

Once I was finished shucking the first two buckets, I went back to the garden to take a few shots. Ummm… I should have done that before I started picking…

Not bad, huh?

I took the first round to the house and put them in the freezer. Then I went back again for two more buckets. I started picking a little after 1 PM which was unusual. Normally, I start later in the day because of the heat but it was not hot at all. It was cloudy and windy and looked like it could rain. In all, I have picked 78 ears. That includes six from a few days ago, nine to the neighbor, and six that were given to the chickens that weren’t quite mature…

Until next time, be safe, stay positive, always be thankful, and GET DIRTY!