After a bad day, I decided to treat myself to myself to my favorite meal; ribeye, sweetcorn, and watermelon. After testing at least 50 varieties of corn over the years, I keep coming back to Incredible. Big ears and great, not too sweet, corny, taste. And the best part, 2 full size ears per plant!
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We like How Sweet It Is.
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I prefer old fashioned varieties, not sugar enhanced, that you have to pick at the right time and eat that day. Golden Bantam for me. I’ve grown Incredible and it is a fine modern sweet corn but nowadays all you can buy is the sugar enhanced stuff. Old fashioned varieties have more corn flavor to my palate and if you don’t have Amish farmers to buy sweetcorn from you have to grow your own for the experience. .
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I don’t grow corn myself anymore- too much space and it needs full sun, which I’d rather allocate for other things. When I grew it before, I would end up spending a lot of time with it, lose some to animals and get maybe a dozen ears.
But I do ask what the varieties are at the farmer’s market. Temptation is a good bicolor that starts around July 4th. Before that comes in, I don’t even bother to buy corn, as I’m not fond of the early ones.
I haven’t been able to consistently find it, but I really liked Mirai (yellow) a few years ago. The smaller ones were especially tasty. When it gets completely full size, it was tender, but not popping/crisp. I think it is one of the more sugary ones (that Alan won’t like)- I checked and it had all 3 (SE/SU/SH2).
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The 4 that I grow are Ambrosia, Serendipity, Incredible and Luscious. Ambrosia and luscious are my favorites of those 2. I am probably not in agreement w many bc I love the crazy sweet ones and these fit the bill. Me and my kids will just pull them off and eat them right there in the rows. Nothing better than that when it comes to corn.
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Honey select. Awesome corn
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I like the old and new stuff. So anything from stowells evergreen to peaches and cream. Heirloom corn appeals to me in every way because you can save the seed, it has true corn flavor, it is very high in vitamins etc.
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I want the sugar stuff myself. I have not grown corn in awhile. I only grew a few varieties. I need to grow more to form a solid opinion. I do know I don’t care much for heirlooms. I do like all corn, if a choice as I don’t consume it often is as sweet as possible. Illini Xtra Sweet probably was my favorite. A little less sweet Silver choice was good too, then again, so many, I may ditch them for others in the future. I only grow it about once every three years as Bob stated, the room needed etc is a problem.
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Simonet is my favorite, with Fishers Earliest next. Both OP, old time corn flavor, hardy and early (very important here). The sweet corn I grow is cross of many short season OP varieties as I’ve been saving and selecting my own seed for many years. But those two were the best of the originals (and probably highest percentage in my mix).
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If you like really sweet corn, you should try honey select. We cut off the cob and freeze every year and when we have dinners people swear we must add a little sugar, but we dont. I have grow many varieties but settled on honey select . It is a synergistic hybrid, very sweet and ears stay good in fridge a couple weeks on the husk.
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I’ll chime in just because I tried growing corn this year for the first time, and had instant success with Vision MXR (F1). Grew it in a 5’ x 8’ raised bed, 4 rows, about 9" apart. Mulched heavily with wood chips as soon as it sprouted. Kept it watered and fertilized it a few times since it was so close together. Put a fence around it to keep the critters out. Already harvested 18 ears and should get 20+ more. Really happy with the flavor.
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My mom would always plant iochief when I was young. I don’t see it around anymore but I think you can get it online. I agree that the old fashioned sugary varieties have the best flavor.
This year I planted se+ hybrids Trinity (68 days) and Delectable (80 days). I was impressed with the complete pollination of these two hybrids even with the early stuff. The flavor was better on the longer season corn. And overall they were good. But I never had any that got to the “chewy” stage.
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Thanks Jason, that cultivar moved to the top of the list! Next time I grow corn, I’ll try it.,
I grow a number of veggies I could get in the store, just because they are fun to grow. Sweet corn is decent here, in farmer’s markets, but the best I ever tasted came out of my backyard. Heirloom or hybrid, corn is worth growing
No doubt whatsoever…HONEY SELECT is the greatest sweetcorn EVER! It is one of the “supersweet” (SH2) corns that have much less starch and much more sugar by weight. For those who may not know, the “supersweet” corns were developed by U of Ill, contain 4-10 times more sugar that regular su sweet corn, and have a longer shelf life before the sugar turns to starch.
I picked 5 dozen ears this weekend and I ate 24 ears of corn in 2 days…no kidding! You will to if you grow this stuff. Actually, I can understand that someone (like Alan) might actually find Honey Select TOO SWEET, but for me that isn’t possible. So if you like a lot of sweet with your sweet corn, this one is for you. I pick mine just past the blister stage- very young- and even then its incredibly sweet and tender.
The only other sweet corn I’d like to try to grow is some of the BT’s that are genetically altered to resist bugs or some of the round-up ready sweet corns so I can just spray glycol right on them and the weeds without killing the corn. But neither are available to backyard growers like me.
Please resist the urge to go on a tirade against Monsanto and/or GMO’s and how they represent the end of the world. I’m not advocating for or against them, simply saying that I’d like to try them.
My favorite has to be “Silver King”! For the last 2 years and it is yummy!
I grew Illini Extra Sweet something like 40 years ago (where did the time go!) when Burpee had an exclusive on this first high sugar variety. It was love at first bite, and It took a couple of decades for me to go back to appreciating the taste of old fashioned sweet corn. I went through a similar cycle with Asian pears- turning from high sugar, low other flavor pears in my mid-40s. This is not an uncommon pattern- to turn away from high sugar in middle age. In another decade or so I will probably start to crave sweet-sweet again.
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Honey Select is very popular in these parts. Our pastor gave us a bunch last year and we ended up canning about 7qt. We grew it this year, but didn’t get a lot out of it or much from our other varieties. It is tasty, tho. We grew either Chief of Iochief plus Stowells Evergreen the first year and we had huge plants, some 8 feet tall. Production was good, but we left it on the stalk too long and it got a bit tough.
POPCORN! 
For me it’s all about the tenderness. I don’t grow it because every time I’ve tried I end up feeding wildlife and encouraging them.
I usually, once or twice a summer find wonderful tender sweet corn and I’ll eat 5-6 ears a day. But more often than not I find good corn that isn’t very tender and finish 1 ear and spend the next hour flossing. The rest ends up going to waste… Sadly
Scott
