setha@teklds.UUCP (Seth D. Alford) (09/18/86)
How do I tell when an ear of corn is ripe? Dick Raymond's gardening book recommends that you put your thumb on the top of the ear near the silk and see if the ear is flat. If its flat its ripe, he claims. I tried this. I might not be doing the test right, but the ear was unripe. I also have tried splitting the husk near the silk to see the ear to see if the kernels were ripe. They weren't. Raymond claims that doing this allows bugs to get into the ear. That does work; the bugs have gotten into the ears where I've split the husk. Does anyone have a fool-proof test? Is the silk completely brown? Does the size of the ear tell you anything? Any way to hasten ripening? -- --Seth Alford Tektronix Walker Road PO Box 4600 MS 92-823 Beaverton OR 97075 tektronix!teklds!setha (503)-629-1145
LRL@PSUVM.BITNET (09/29/86)
I've heard that you harvest corn when the silks are brown but not brittle. I couldn't get to all my corn before the silks turned brittle, and can say that they tasted fine after the silks were brittle anyway.
setha@teklds.UUCP (Seth D. Alford) (09/30/86)
Another thing to consider when harvesting corn is what color it is supposed to be. I looked at the seed package from my corn again. It's a white variety. This would explain why the kernels never turned yellow. We harvested most of the ears last night. I had one. Mmmmh, delicious; nothing beats fresh corn. I'm glad I looked at the package with the leftover seeds. I felt somewhat stupid, but not nearly as stupid as I would have felt looking at the package next spring after tilling under all of my "unripe" corn. I now recall thinking last spring that the corn would be white and not yellow when harvested. In my defense let me say that the corn seed I used was a freebie from Henry Field's (the mail order seed & garden company). If I'd picked it out myself from the garden store I would know that it was a white variety. (I can just hear everyone say, "Sure you would have.") I also know that the corn loses its freshness once its picked. However, we're getting our fall monsoon here in Western Oregon and the corn stalks are blowing over. Top heavy corn stalks don't stand up in mud. Boiling corn is slower, but better than microwaving it. It's too easy to overcook corn in the microwave. Anyway, the moral of this is that you should keep good records of what you planted and when. -- --Seth Alford Tektronix Walker Road PO Box 4600 MS 92-823 Beaverton OR 97075 tektronix!teklds!setha (503)-629-1145