How does the corn plant work?
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Ridgerunner
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No. It can vary a bit by variety, but most corn plants make one or two ears, no more. Once those ears are finished and fully matured, the plant dies.
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so lucky
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If you are growing the corn for your own use--to eat as fresh corn, then only leave it long enough for the ears to get filled out with plump kernals. The tassel should be brown. If you leave it on till the plant dies, the corn will not be edible fresh, and may just dry up and be unuseable. Sweet corn is different than field corn. Field corn doesn't have nearly the amount of sugar available, and is not as tender or sweet. It is more fragile to grow and keep. If you are wanting the corn for wildlife, perhaps leaving it on the stalk is ok. I would rather grow some field corn for livestock. Cheaper and not as finicky.
Ridgerunner
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Golden Queen Hybrid is an SE sweet corn. I don't grow Golden Queen myself but that should be a good one. One of the good traits of SE is that it usually holds its peak flavor longer than the other ones. It's a little more forgiving in when you need to pick it. To me, that is good.
Sweet corn can be a bit tricky knowing when to pick it until you've gone through it the first time. Once you get some experience with it, it gets a lot easier.
It's your first time so don't be too afraid to experiment a little bit. When you see the silks go brown, leave a fairly nice ear on the plant but peel the husks back enough to see the corn kernels. That should be a yellow variety. When those kernels look yellow and plump, poke a kernel with your fingernail. A milky liquid should come out, maybe even squirt a bit. That means it's at its peak.
One of the downsides of doing this is that you open the ear up to birds or insects to eat the corn kernels. That's not the end of the world as long as they only eat that right on the end since you can just cut that off before you eat it. But try to put the husks back up around the ear after you test it.
Something you might see when you do that is that a corn ear worm has already found it and is eating on it. Some years this is a lot more of a problem than others. On bad years, I've been known to go through the immature corn and peel the husks back a bit to pick these corn ear worms off so they don't eat much. This year they were not bad at all. Last year they were really bad. Chickens love those corn ear worms, by the way.
Another thing about sweet corn. As soon as you pick it off the corn plant, that sugar that makes it so nice starts to turn to starch. This does not happen instantaneously, but it does start to turn. You want to pick it as close to when you are going to cook it as possible. That's a big reason the corn you grow yourself tastes even better than the corn you get from those roadside stands, let alone the stuff you get in a grocery store. Sweet corn is one thing where freshness really matters.
Sweet corn can be a bit tricky knowing when to pick it until you've gone through it the first time. Once you get some experience with it, it gets a lot easier.
It's your first time so don't be too afraid to experiment a little bit. When you see the silks go brown, leave a fairly nice ear on the plant but peel the husks back enough to see the corn kernels. That should be a yellow variety. When those kernels look yellow and plump, poke a kernel with your fingernail. A milky liquid should come out, maybe even squirt a bit. That means it's at its peak.
One of the downsides of doing this is that you open the ear up to birds or insects to eat the corn kernels. That's not the end of the world as long as they only eat that right on the end since you can just cut that off before you eat it. But try to put the husks back up around the ear after you test it.
Something you might see when you do that is that a corn ear worm has already found it and is eating on it. Some years this is a lot more of a problem than others. On bad years, I've been known to go through the immature corn and peel the husks back a bit to pick these corn ear worms off so they don't eat much. This year they were not bad at all. Last year they were really bad. Chickens love those corn ear worms, by the way.
Another thing about sweet corn. As soon as you pick it off the corn plant, that sugar that makes it so nice starts to turn to starch. This does not happen instantaneously, but it does start to turn. You want to pick it as close to when you are going to cook it as possible. That's a big reason the corn you grow yourself tastes even better than the corn you get from those roadside stands, let alone the stuff you get in a grocery store. Sweet corn is one thing where freshness really matters.
baymule
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If you were going to make cornmeal, then leave it on the plant until it dies. Sweet corn doesn't make the best cornmeal, but it sure is good fresh! If you have more than you can eat, Shuck it, blanch it and put it in the freezer. It is sooooo good in the winter!
