I crowd my corn terribly and then I interplant it with beans, so I'm not surprised I only get one ear per stalk. Last year that's all I got too. Kind of short ears too, about 6-8 inches long. Last year I was growing Golden Jubilee. This year it's Celestial (too early to tell how many ears it will yield). I don't mind the one-ear-per-stalk, because I don't put any up and I plant all at the same time. So we have to eat it all real quick - say within a week or two of ripeness. I have about 60-80 plants with a family of three corn-eaters, we'll have to eat two cobs a day per person for 10 days. I don't have the luxury of space, so if I planted half the plants and got two cobs per ear, it wouldn't do me any good. Real dense as they are, they shade the ground good, support each other a bit against winds and make a decent bean trelis. Far as I can tell I have terrific soil.

Yes, Yes - picking to late - Definitely! Cooking to long - maybe! Todays sweet corn starts getting ready to be picked within 2 to 3 days of the silks drying. The best way I've found to tell ripeness is to start "feelin its back leg" (so-to-speak). When the silks start to dry, start feeling the ears for fullness. With a little practice, you'll be able to tell exactly when the ear quits swelling. Never, NEVER pull the shuck down unless you want to expose the ear to all manner of insects and birds. Once pulled down, you can never get it re-sealed. With the new super-sweet corns, timing is everything for maximum sweetness. Have your cooking water getting hot before you go out to pick and then leave the corn in the water only long enough to get good and hot all the way through.

Hi John, I live outside of San Antonio and I plant out a small area of corn around the first or second week of march. They don't transplant well so I just direct sow them. We put out sucessive (2 weeks apart) early bantam corn last year and got 3 harvests before it got too hot.

I know, I have read that over and over, and yet the ziploc bag of sweet corn that I just thawed and cooked with tonight was perfect, and it was packed on July 21st, 2011, without any blanching.. and its perfect corn.. I've also read that under blanching is worse because it activates the enzymes, yet I have no food deterioration. What I'm worried about is, if I start blanching, will I lose some of the sweetness and the quality that I am now enjoying? Here is a link that might be useful: My Garden