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Read by Michael Flamel
The best sweet corn I ever grew was in my very first or second real garden (I don’t remember if I grew sweet corn that first year, but definitely at least by the second. Maybe the first. I dunno. What you think? [And have you seen my ginkgo?]).
I know this because I didn’t get any. I planted Platinum Lady (Yes, chosen for the name alone-what about it? It’s the way to go with racehorses and baseball players) from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Back when we lived at The Castle and had full sun all day long! Didn’t live in a small carved-out area of old-growth forest like Snow White-except that the birds and animals don’t do your dishes for you. No. Full sun. All day long! I can feel my face flush just thinking about it.
Platinum Lady had beautiful purple stalks and looked great before the ears even formed-a lot like the canna lilies I wouldn’t grow for another decade and didn’t know from a door back then. As the ears silked and then filled out, I studied the Johnny’s catalog, every old issue of Organic Gardening S & Farming I could get my paws on, and asked everyone I met if they knew how to tell when corn was ready.
I poked and prodded, waiting for just the right color liquid to squirt out of my test kernel (*~saquack! tower to test kernel*scereetch~describe state of milkiness~*scratccchh), and then, just as all the signs told me that the first ears were a day or two from entering Sugary Heaven, I was struck down by the worst illness I ever had, the only serious illness I had ever had (stop here to knock on my own head [I am sitting at a pine table, but I figure go for hardwood]), an illness so nasty that it precluded my eating solid food for weeks-and then forced me onto a diet that restricted corn for long enough that I had to give away every beautiful ear. And, of course, listen to the evil beings I so honored taunt me with their torturous reports on its intense sweetness.
I been trying to get a bite of that corn ever since.
The closest I ever got was with a variety called Ambrosia sent to me by one of the family-member owners of a whole sale only seed company in response to whining by me in ORGANIC GARDENING (soon after I became editor) that I couldn’t find my Phantom Lady-oops, I mean Platinum Lady [Phantom Lady was the penultimate 1940’s comic book heroine. Fought crime in a very (pre-comics-code authority, the Wild West of Comics, when ‘Headlights’ ruled!) revealing negligee/ costume (got any back issues? I’m always in the market for fine art … )] seed any more (course, it would have helped had I bothered to look in a catalog or two-as three or four or 600 OG readers so nicely pointed out).
GREAT corn. I even got to eat some. Raccoons got about half. And, of course, I had your basic Garden Sweet Corn Knock Down where a vicious storm takes and pounds the poor plants so prone they just lie there and whimper, “Help! We’ve Fallen And We Can’t Get Up” (Why doesn’t this ever seem to happen to fields of corn? And how foolish a thing have you ever done to try to get yours to stand up straight again [I’ve used my car—can you beat that?]), but I salvaged enough earths to know that Ambrosia was something special!
Then I didn’t grow any corn at home for a couple of years-got distracted (and had more sun!) growing really cool non-sweet corns outside my OG office in a great raised bed they (Rodale) put in there for me to putter in. Bloody Butcher, the wonderful giant (15 feet high if they’ s an inch) heirloom field corn that dries into bright red kernels that I shared seed of with readers and that my Wonderful Wife made BRIGHT red corn meal [ and then delicious-and yes, extremely red-cornmeal-based eatable things] out of; and some really pretty ‘Indian’ popcorn that produced endless varieties of wonderfully colored ears-ones that were a solid stunning red, pure gold ears that looked truly metallic, mixed colors in both wonderfully controlled and totally abandoned textures ….
Looked great in a jar! Looked Jab hanging on a wall. But it all pops up white. So when you use it you lose it.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch …
This year I decided to do sweet corn at home again. The fact that I had a giant tin filled with about a dozen different varieties was a slight incentive, and then, when I found the remnants of that original bag of Ambrosia, I was hooked. And, I had a plan (of course I had a plan-you can’t screw up without a plan!).
Planted two seeds each in about 50 little peat pots and placed them on the heating mats recently vacated by the tomatoes and such that were now enjoying the outdoors. Waited.
A week goes by. This seed is close to ten years old if it’s a day, and summer is fast approaching. A couple of 90-degree days beam down invitingly on my chosen corn spot outside, and l can’t stand it no more. Dig around in one peat pot and pull out a wonderfully soft and milky kernel! They must be just about ready to sprout, I deceive myself!
So that False Feeling of Hope blows another couple of days.
Finally, I decide to bag it, root through the tin for a replacement from the era of color TV, and settle on Kandy Kwik. The name implies speed and sweetness-neither a quality that I seem to personally possess, but at this point a good way to choose a sweet corn methinks.
And so, when my Sainted Wife enters the greenhouse to find me gutting peat pots with a spoon (I had to reuse the pots, and just KNEW that if I didn’t empty them first, the #@$%&! Ambrosia would finally decide to sprout and we’d have a Competing Corns Celebrity Death match) and asks what I’m doing, I get to answer “I’m planting sweetcorn! What does it look like I’m doing?”
“I don’t even want to think about what it looks like you’re doing … ”
The Plan is two-fold. Pre-sprout the corn seeds in plantable peat pots so that you’re assured of a full planting with no stalk-free areas (cause you only plant the ones that sprout [the preceding, by the way, can be sung to the tune of “You only hurt the one you love” (“the one you shouldn’t plant at all!”)]), then plant them in a way that protects them from the inevitable sweet corn garden tumble (Yes, I realize that this is akin to saying, “Why no, I don’t think we’re building too close to the coastline here-we can control the ocean!”, but as Daffy Duck always used to say-“If I don’t go in the door marked ‘Explosives-DO NOT ENTER!!!’ we got no picture.”)
So that’s why my 35 sprouted peat pots (up in two-and-a-half days using living seeds—now there’s a concept!) are in the four-by four fake lumber recycled plastic raised bed our good friends at Obex (Hi, Celeste!) gave me years ago, framed by a tall stake driven down into each of the bed’s four comers.
Have you guessed yet? I’m building a boxing ring. As the corn grows (or is that “corns grow”?), I will use the stakes to surround my precious charges with a protective ring of ropes.
Unlike professional wrestlers, the stalks should not be able to fall through those ropes. Ergo, they should not fall down (and yes, I’ll be as amazed as you if this work sand if you think it’s so funny why are you already planning to try it next year?)
The raccoons should not be an issue, either. Years ago, I discovered away to really keep them away from ripening sweet corn. A radio. Yes, yes-I too used a radio to try and repel them only to discover that it was simply adding musical ambiance to their dining experience. And then I changed frequencies.
No more Mr. Nice Guy FM music in the garden. AM radio! The Phillies ball game with the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, the nasally baritone announcers and the really loud yelling aggravating commercials. And AFTER the ball game comes repeats of the day’s Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy talk shows! Loud! Yelling! Aggravating! And some pretty bad commercials here too.
I will succeed! With God as my witness, I WILL eat my own sweet corn (LOTS of butter, some pepper, no salt-first ear stripped and plunged into boiling water right out there in the garden and eaten while still attached to the plant) this year!
… eh, that wasn’t thunder, was it?
See ya next time-I’ll be the one reeking of butter and fructose! ❖
