Thoughts on Growing Pesticide-Free Sweet Corn

My family is quite conscious of our community's desire for produce that nourishes, tastes great, and has low impact on the environment. We want to be able to provide that to them, and so began our quest to grow pesticide-free sweet corn. The learning curve has been quite a ride! From variety selection, to cover crop usage and selection, from weed control to just how much damage can be done by four-legged & six-legged pests, and even how and when to properly harvest, there are dozens of factors that go into how successful a sweet corn crop will be.

Variety selection might have been our most important step in protecting our crop from pests, and providing a long-lasting harvest. We chose varieties that would withstand cooler weather in the fall, so we can keep providing corn for a long season. Our other criteria included: a long holding life on the stalk, so we don't have to pick it all at once; a long shelf life after picking, so you can take home a dozen and eat it all week if you want to; a nice large ear and an extra-sweet, tender kernel for tasty goodness. But the trait that's been the most beneficial is the length of the husks - they're longer than many others, so the tip of the ear is down below the end. This hides the kernels from the insects that would burrow into the tip of the ear and chow down before we'd get to it. That means far fewer - almost zero - ears with worms in, even though there are no insecticides applied.


And that brings me to the "getting to it." That longer husk has made it challenging for some of us (ok, me - Christina) to learn how to select ears when picking. After picking every day for two weeks, this week I finally got the hang of it and realized that I'd been picking some of my corn early! It was tasty and tender, but not quite big enough. Now that I really know what I'm doing the corn I'm picking is a better fit for everyone who's coming to eat it.