Baby corn is a must grow for me every summer.
One of the questions I get asked a lot about growing baby corn is just how many can you harvest per plant? This year, I grew the variety 'Snobaby' - in total I had twelve plants and got between six to eight ears of baby corn per plant.
“Harvest baby corn one to three days after silks appear.”
The good thing about growing baby corn is that the plants can be spaced very closely together - this variety has a recommended planting spacing distance of 15cm.
This means that you can grow them in small gardens or containers.
Baby corn is not wind pollinated so the plants can be placed in a row - essentially you are harvesting the immature corn before pollination takes place.
They also like the heat so grow them in a sunny but protected spot.
Over the last 2-3 days, I harvested about 25 ears of baby corn. Each juicy baby cob was wrapped in an outer layer of leaves and cocooned in a bed of soft golden silk like strands.
They were simply beautiful.
One of the biggest challenges to get right when growing baby corn is harvesting at the right time. So, here are my top tips:
When tassels appear at the top of your plants, start looking out for ears of corn
Harvest the baby corn between 1 to 3 days after silks appear. Any longer than that and they will be too hard and inedible.