I tend to operate an informal ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy on the veg I grow – I don’t give up on any particular crop until it’s failed me three times. After all, the weather may not suit them in one year, or any individual failure is most likely user error until proven otherwise. So I persist until it becomes obvious the effort pointless (see: carrots) or they finally come good (leeks, squash). This year, sweetcorn appears to be the latest customer at the last chance saloon. Last year, having been lured into growing it by reports of freezers groaning with the stuff I think I got about three kernels on one cob. This year it got off to a poor start, seemed to catch up, fell over, and was finally felled by the frost just as the cobs were beginning to swell up
Out of curiosity I harvested all the cobs I could find and took them back to the kitchen for a bit of googling
So it turns out, baby sweetcorn is basically baby sweetcorn – it’s not some special tiny dwarf variety, it’s what happens if you pick sweetcorn before it’s had a chance to get pollinated. Having shucked all the husks I discovered I had either grown a totally rubbish crop of sweetcorn – or a respectable amount of baby corn
So we cooked it, smothered it in butter, and ate the lot in one go. Yum. Maybe next year I’ll just call it baby corn and have done with it.
