How sweet it is to ...

How sweet it is to actually crop some sweetcorn.

There were times when we thought this moment wouldn't come.

Sweetcorn is wind pollinated so you wouldn't expect pollination to be a problem on our allotment site. The lean to some of the trees and the way tall plants are battered bears testament to the fact that our site can be extremely windswept.

As an added measure I kept brushing my hand through the plants and watched the pollen from the male flowers rain down on the female flowers. I was pretty sure that if all that had to happen was that male pollen must meet female stigma - bingo swelling sweetcorn would result.

The plants looked healthy enough even after being subjected to a battering by the previously mentioned winds and cobs were developing.

So you can imagine our disappointment when we peeled back the sheaves from the cobs to reveal wizened, unpollinated kernels. We thought here was a second cornless year. Then people started to comment on their blogs that they had picked cobs which weren't pollinated to the very end but that they still had managed some sort of a crop. So with a bit more hope I decided to strip our plants. I ended up with a box full of cobs but would they bear fruit?

They did but as reported by others most of the kernels at the tip of the cobs were unpollinated.

I did a little research and found that poor pollination can result when pollen is falling during heavy rain or hot, dry weather. Not prizes for guessing which is the most likely cause this year.

Well the cobs may not look as pretty as usual but we still have a few bags of kernels for the freezer and that which we have already eaten was just as sweet so it's not all bad news!