As misterbaby stated, sweet corn is eaten in its immature stage. Pick in the milk stage, silks are the best indicator. Early corn tends to have small ears. All corn husks turn yellow/brown as the corn matures. Sweet corn will have wrinkled kernels. Purple in the stalk and husks is related to cultivar and has no relation to maturity. Dent corn is a field corn, noted for having a dimple in the top center of the kernel. Typically used for cattle feed or corn flour. Flint corn has a hard smooth kernel, makes good cornmeal, but today mostly used as ornamental.

You don't have to shred anything. But the smaller something is the faster it will decompose. Whole trees that fall down in the forest still decay over time - it just takes longer. You just have to balance out how much time and energy you want to put into the project, how soon you wnat to be able to have the plot ready for planting, and what you want to plant in the space. If you are going to plant fruit trees, seedlings, or sow seeds right in the plot will all have an impact of what the soil texture needs to be in order to be successful.

Carol, I was thinking of corn cob jelly when I said corn husk jelly. I bet it would taste the same, and yes I was remembering the pinkeye purplehull pea hull jelly conversation Paula and I had a couple of years ago. And all the ones since then too. I think that with commercial pectin, a person could can anything and get it to gel, including water. I neglected to suggest you can use the husks to make tamales, or anything that needs to be wrapped in parchment paper for cooking. Or, you can dry them and make corn husk dolls or corn husk wreaths. Some herbalists use corn husks for medicinal purposes, but I don't remember which ones. You also can pickle pig's feet but I wasn't about to suggest that here. I expect it would require the use of a pressure canner since it is a meat. During the Dust Bowl days they even canned food we think of as weeds because subsistence farmers didn't have much else of a crop to can. I believe they canned thistles, among other stuff. I'd have to look it up in "The Worst Hard Time". Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers probably could have listed a bunch of uses for corn husks. Folks didn't waste anything back then. Dawn

Fresh husks are food. I snip mine to make the fibers shorter. Dry husks are browns. I'd still snip them up. So if you have room to dry them out go for it. I haven't been able have any corn this year. The corn in the garden hasn't done well at all. Went to tassel at 18" high. And the local stores still haven't gotten anything but a few ears that they are selling pre-shucked at an unbelievable price. Not to mention its all white corn. Never liked white corn myself.