AN ABUNDANCE OF SWEET CORN
As a child the only corn I knew was maize. My father always planted a plot of this corn, much of which was fed to the pigs. If it was picked young while the kernels were still milky with juice it could be boiled and served for a dinner vegetable, but my favorite treat was to roll the young cobs across the hot metal top of our wood burning stove until some of the kernels blackened. Then I would sprinkle the cob with salt, slather it with butter and go outside to chew every last kernel off the cob while butter ran down my chin.
Back about 1983 I spent a week holidaying in Fiji at one of the expensive beach side resorts. I had slept too late to take any of the Saturday morning excursions organized for tourists, but found the Fijian entertainment manager in the lobby trying to put together a trip for his own amusement. With nothing else to do I accepted his invitation to join him and a few other stragglers, to attend a football match in Sigatoka. We all piled into a little bus, then made a side trip to collect the children of his family, before taking the road through sugar plantations over the hills to Sigatoka. The football field was a bare area of grass surrounded by a high ring of corrugated iron sheeting. Young lads perched, seated on their rubber flip-flop sandals on this sharp edge. Men had climbed trees and were sitting on all roofs that offered a view. We were led by our guide through a muddy area where forty-four gallon former fuel drums, set over fires, were boiling water with corn cobs still in their husks. The Fijian locals were buying this corn on the cob, pulling off the husks, dropping these on the ground, munching off the corn kernels and then dropping the chewed cob to join the other refuse under foot. I reminded me of my father’s muddy pig pens.
By the time I had my own garden at Das Helwig Haus B&B and began growing vegetables the seed of sweet corn was readily available. Now there are many seed varieties from which you can choose. While seed packets give instructions about the distance apart and the depth to plant seed it is important to note that corn is wind pollinated and should be planted in squares, not long lines.
Sweet Corn growing at Das Helwig Haus B&B
One of my Facebook friends contacted me to ask how to tell when corn is ready to pick. I posted this photo as an illustration. The silk at the top of the cob has dried brown. I then peel back a little of the green husk to ensure that the kernels have filled out. With a clump like this all the corn will ripen and need to come off at the same time.
The brown, dry silk on ripe corn.
A barrow load of corn cobs
I use secateurs to cut the corn stalks off at the ground. The cobs are pulled off and placed in one barrow. The corn stalks are cut into short lengths over the other barrow and then dumped on the compost heap. The barrow with the cobs is taken on to a shady veranda where the work of shucking begins.
Patches supervises the shucking of the corn.
The green corn husks are also placed on the compost heap.
A basket of sweet corn
Freshly picked sweet corn is always much sweeter than the corn bought in the supermarket or the greengrocer shops because within hours the sugar in the corn begins the process of turning to starch. I will retain enough cobs of fresh uncooked corn for our family to use within a week. The remainder I will boil in unsalted water (salt hardens the kernels) until cooked, drain off the water and allow to cool until easily handled.
Corn boiling in unsalted water.
Use a sharp, saw bladed knife to slice the corn off the cob.
Slice the corn kernels off the cobs
If a friend like Mary Jane arrives, I hand her a glass of wine and set her to work crumbling the sliced corn. Once more the corn cobs can be placed on the compost heap. The combination of stalks, husks and cobs provides moisture and heat aiding the decomposition process.
Mary Jane crumbles cooked corn.
The final task is to pack this crumbled corn into freezer boxes for storage in the deep freeze. You may prefer to put your corn into freezer bags, but I prefer to do it this way for easy stacking . If I later run short of freezer boxes it is easy to turn the frozen contents of these boxes into bags where the contents will retain its easily stacked shape.
Cooked sweet corn in stacked freezer boxes.
In this cool mountain climate of the Granite Belt I don’t plant my corn seed until October. Our farm is low in the valley at Glen Aplin through which the Severn River flows. Frost also flows downhill to settle in low areas and thus I run the risk of losing a crop to frost if I plant too early in the spring.
