×
  • Home
  • Daily
    • Buyers Guides
    • Composting
    • Container Gardening
    • Easy Healthy Recipes
    • Food Preservation
    • Garden Design
    • Garden Tools
    • Gardening LIfe
      • Animals in the Garden
      • Funny Business
      • Gardening History
      • Gardening Humor
      • Gardening Mishaps
      • Gardening Poems
      • Gardening Romance
      • Gardening Science
      • Gardening with Kids
      • Healing Gardens
      • Joy of Gardening
      • Mystical Gardens
      • Ornamental Gardening
    • Growing Fruits & Berries
    • Indoor Gardening
    • Pests & Diseases
    • Seeds & Seedlings
    • Soil & Fertilizer
    • Spice & Herb Gardening
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Watering & Irrigation
  • Freebies
  • Videos
  • Magazines
    • Food Gardening Magazine
    • GreenPrints Magazine
    • RecipeLion Magazine
  • Books
    • GuideBooks
    • Cookbooks
      • Beverages
      • Bakery
      • Breakfast
      • Appetizers
      • Salads & Dressings
      • Soups
      • Entrées
      • Side Dishes & Sauces
      • Desserts
    • Story Collections
    • StoryBooks
    • Recipe Collections
  • Kits
    • Garden Calendars
    • Garden Plans
    • Recipe Cards
    • Greeting Cards
    • ArtPrints
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Affiliate Program
  • Sponsor Program
  • Give a Gift
  • Privacy Policy & Terms of Use
  • Authors
  • GreenPrints Writer’s Guidelines
  • Keyword Index
  • Join
Crochet, Food Gardening, Knitting, Quilting, Rug Hooking, Sewing
Celebrating 5 Years!

Food Gardening Network

Growing food, fun & more

Give a GiftJoin
Visit Our Amazon Store!
  • Daily
    • Buyers Guides
    • Composting
    • Container Gardening
    • Easy Healthy Recipes
    • Food Preservation
    • Garden Design
    • Garden Tools
    • Gardening Life
      • Animals in the Garden
      • Funny Business
      • Gardening History
      • Gardening Humor
      • Gardening Mishaps
      • Gardening Poems
      • Gardening Romance
      • Gardening Science
      • Gardening with Kids
      • Healing Gardens
      • Joy of Gardening
      • Mystical Gardens
      • Ornamental Gardening
    • Growing Fruits & Berries
    • Indoor Gardening
    • Pests & Diseases
    • Seeds & Seedlings
    • Soil & Fertilizer
    • Spice & Herb Gardening
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Watering & Irrigation
  • Freebies
  • Videos
  • Magazines
    • Food Gardening Magazine
    • GreenPrints Magazine
    • RecipeLion Magazine
  • Books
    • GuideBooks
    • Cookbooks
      • Beverages
      • Bakery
      • Breakfast
      • Appetizers
      • Salads & Dressings
      • Soups
      • Entrées
      • Side Dishes & Sauces
      • Desserts
    • Story Collections
    • StoryBooks
    • Recipe Collections
  • Kits
    • Garden Calendars
    • Garden Plans
    • Recipe Cards
    • Greeting Cards
    • ArtPrints
  • Visit Our Amazon Store!|
  • Sign In
  • Search

Corny Gardening Humor for A-Type Gardeners

Corny Gardening Humor for A-Type Gardeners

Maybe it's corn-y, but today's gardening humor story is about a man and his love of authentic sweet corn.

By Amanda MacArthur | September 27, 2024

two men on the cornfield

Do you grow your own corn? I’ve never had much luck. I’ve tried sweet corn and the jeweled popping varieties, but never have I been able to grow even one cob I could eat. I know I’m not alone in this, as most of my backyard gardening friends claim the same. The more corn you can grow, the better corn you’ll get, and my plot for corn just isn’t that big.

Unfortunately, the sweetest corn is the one that comes right off the stalk. If you’re a real corn grower, you know that, though if we’re being honest, some of the supermarket stuff isn’t that bad in a pinch.

But in today’s funny gardening humor story, Picking Corn, the author’s dad would disagree. I mean, I’ve never met a guy who walked into someone else’s corn field to get corn fresher than what was in his market, but to each his own! In today’s piece, you’ll get a chuckle out of a gardener who has left his corn field, but who still won’t settle for an hour-old cob of corn.

Gardening Humor For Anyone Who Grows Corn

This story comes from our archive that spans over 30 years and includes more than 130 magazine issues of GreenPrints. Pieces like these that inject gardening humor into everyday life lessons always brighten up my day, and I hope it does for you as well. Enjoy!

decorative border

Picking Corn

My dad wanted it fresh. Very fresh.

By Harvey Silverman

two men in the cornfield

One of the things I miss most about my dad is his wonderful and slightly quirky sense of humor. I often think of my dad when I eat sweet corn.

You see, Dad enjoyed sweet corn, but he insisted it be fresh. Given the opportunity, he would happily explain that as soon as the corn was picked the sugar in the kernels began to be converted to starch and that this conversion continued until the corn was cooked and the enzyme responsible for the conversion deactivated. (This is less true of many varieties today.)

When I was a boy, we had a small vegetable garden in the backyard. We grew all the usual things–radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, and the like. We also grew sweet corn.

We normally picked our vegetables and gave them to my mom to prepare for dinner–but not with sweet corn. When it was time to get some sweet corn, my dad would first place a large pot of water on the stove and heat it to boiling. Then he and I would go out to the garden, pick and peel the corn, and head straight back into the kitchen to place it in the boiling water so that it was cooked as fresh as possible.

After I grew up, my folks moved to a new home where they had no garden. My dad still enjoyed sweet corn, so he bought it at a local farm stand where it would be fresher than in the grocery store.

One afternoon on the way home from work, he stopped at the local farm stand and asked for fresh sweet corn.

“I have some right here. It was just picked this morning,” said the farmer.

“This morning?” Dad said. “Have anything fresher?”

“Well, I have some here that I haven’t put out yet. You can have some of that. It was just picked an hour ago.”

“An hour ago? Don’t you have anything fresher?”

By then the farmer was becoming just a bit annoyed with my dad. He took him out into the field just behind his farm stand. He picked some corn, handed it to my dad and said, “Okay, is this fresh enough for you?”

My dad looked at him, paused, and said, “I don’t know. You’re picking kind of slow.” ❖

By Harvey Silverman, published originally in 2016, in GreenPrints Issue #102. Illustrations by Hannah England.

decorative border

Do you grow your own corn, or have you in the past? What do you think: was this former farmer spot-on, or is hour-old corn fine enough? 

« Antimicrobial Herbs You Can Grow at Home
Plants for Kids: 5 Fun Ways to Introduce Kids to Gardening »

Related Posts

  • Garden Pest Control? Whatever You Say!
  • Behold! The Patron Saint of Lawn Mowers!
  • Digging Up Gardening Humor in Manure

Tags

corn, gardener, gardening friends, gardening humor, gardening stories, greenprints, picking corn, small vegetable garden, vegetable garden

Comments
  • Kevin M. January 18, 2025

    Try soaking it in water first 30 mins, more is better without shucking it get it really soaked then grill it for 30 minutes
    then shuck it. its great!

    Reply
  • Mrs P. August 14, 2022

    My husband, Harold, was the enthusiastic sweet corn grower in our family. Our large country garden provided sweet corn for all our kith and kin. Every year Harold ordered a special collection of four different varieties of sweet corn that matured sequentially so that there was corn ready to eat from mid-summer until the last variety stopped yielding in early autumn. Yes, fresher is better but today’s super sweet corn varieties are a tasty improvement over the old. Friends and family all miss the wonderful sweet corn from Harold’s country garden now that we are domiciled once more in the city and sadly, have no room for growing corn.

    Reply
  • Cathy S. August 12, 2022

    I always cook the corn I get from the Farm Stand (picked the same morning) that same day and it seems to be the BEST! Love the humor here, but I think he’s on to something!

    Reply

Click here to cancel reply.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Give a Gift

FREEBIE!

With your FREEBIE, you’ll also receive regular email messages from the Food Gardening Network. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Your email address is private. We promise never to sell, rent or disclose your email address to third parties.

Freebies

  • Worst Best Gardening Jokes Calendar
  • 5 Easy Healthy Carrot Recipes
  • 5 Easy Healthy Lemon Recipes
  • 5 Easy Healthy Salsa Recipes
  • 5 Easy Healthy Apple Recipes
  • 5 Easy Healthy Chicken Breast Recipes
  • Top 11 Food Gardening Tools You Need to Succeed
  • A Printable Companion Planting Chart
  • Plants for Bug Control Chart
  • Printable Seed Germination Temperature Chart
  • Printable Tomato Garden-to-Table Chart
  • Planning Your Perfect Food Garden
  • Printable Butterfly Garden Planting Chart
  • The Best Way to Grow Tomatoes
  • Printable Composting 101 Charts
  • How to Master Spice and Herb Gardening at Home
  • Printable Monthly Gardening Calendar
  • 10 Best Garden Poems of All Time
  • Vegetable Garden Planting Chart Freebie
  • Printable Flower Garden Companion Planting Chart
  • 10 Things You Can Grow That Your Pet Will LOVE To Eat!
  • Rose Garden Planting Chart Freebie
  • Printable Kitchen Garden Planting Charts
  • Sunflower Garden Planting Chart Freebie
  • Seasonal ArtPrints Collection Kit Sampler
  • Sampler: Gardening Humor
  • Sampler: Wit, Wisdom, & Learning
  • Gardening in Every Season
  • How to Start a Freedom Garden
  • Recipes from Your Garden
  • Sampler: Animals in the Garden
  • Sampler: Healing Gardens
  • Sampler: Joy of Gardening
  • Growing Vegetables Indoors for Beginners
  • 15 Easiest Fruits to Grow at Home
  • How to Grow a Vegetable Garden

Browse Topics

  • Buyers Guides
  • Composting
  • Container Gardening
  • Easy Healthy Recipes
  • Food Preservation
  • Garden Design
  • Garden Tools
  • Gardening Life
  • Growing Fruits & Berries
  • Indoor Gardening
  • Ornamental Gardening
  • Pests & Diseases
  • Seeds & Seedlings
  • Soil & Fertilizer
  • Spice & Herb Gardening
  • Uncategorized
  • Vegetable Gardening
  • Watering & Irrigation

Buyers Guides:

  • 9 Automated Garden Tools for Effortless Growing
  • 12 Cool Gardening Tools and Gifts for the Plant Lover in Your Life
  • Choosing the Best Shovel for Your Gardening Needs
  • 10 Gardening Tools for Seniors That Actually Make a Difference
  • This Countertop Compost Machine Turns Scraps into Compost in a Few Hours
  • 10+ Food Gardening Gadgets We Love
  • 15 Adaptive and Accessible Gardening Tools and Raised Beds
  • 13 Canning Tools, Supplies & Equipment You Need
  • The 3 Best Gardening Shoes
  • 5+ Best Bird Deterrents for Gardens
  • Shop Our Amazon Store

Authors:

  • Bill Dugan
  • Amanda MacArthur
  • Mike McGrath
  • Don Nicholas
  • Norann Oleson
  • Christy Page
  • Becky Rupp
  • Beth Rush
  • Pat Stone
  • Diana Wells

Enter Your Log In Credentials

This setting should only be used on your home or work computer.

  • Lost your password? Create New Password
  • No account? Sign up

Need Assistance?

Call Food Gardening Network Customer Service at
(800) 777-2658

Food Gardening Network is an active member of the following industry associations:

  • American Horticultural Society
  • GardenComm Logo
  • GardenComm Laurel Media Award
  • MCMA logo
  • Join Now
  • Learn More
  • About Food Gardening Network
  • Contact Us
  • Affiliate Program
  • Sponsor Program
  • Give a Gift
  • Privacy Policy & Terms of Use

Food Gardening Network
99 Derby Street, Suite 200
Hingham, MA 02043
support@foodgardening.mequoda.com

To learn more about our Email Marketing and Broadcasting Services, Exchange Program, or to become a marketing partner with any of our publications, click here to contact us at Mequoda Publishing Network.

FREE E-Newsletter for You!

Discover how to grow, harvest, and eat good food from your own garden—with our FREE e-newsletter, delivered directly to your email inbox.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest

Powered by
Mequoda Publishing Network
copyright © 2025 Mequoda Systems, LLC

Food Gardening Network®, Food Gardening Magazine® and GreenPrints® are registered trademarks of Mequoda Systems, LLC.

Go to mobile version