Sweet Corn

Sweet corn is fast becoming our second most important crop. We have been growing and selling fresh market sweet corn for about 5 years now and have become known for quality sweet corn with excellent taste. We always try to pick our corn a little on the young side so the kernels are tender and juicy. You don't usually need a toothpick after you get done eating our corn.

The variety that we started with and has been our mainstay is Bodacious. It is a yellow sugar enhanced variety and is full of flavor. We have two triple sweets that have really taken over the main portion of our season. They are Honey Select, a yellow and Serendipity, a bi-color. Both have excellent flavor and hold their sweetness a little longer than some of the other varieties. We do keep trying new varieties so that we are always supplying our customers with the best eating quality they can get.

Once corn is picked the sugar starts changing to starch. Regular sweet corn will change fairly rapidly, so you almost have to run from the field to the table to get good tasting corn. The sugar-enhanced varieties take almost twice as long to change the sugar to starch and they also have the most tender kernel. The supersweet varieties hold their sweetness the longest but you give up the tenderness and superior flavor of the sugar enhanced varieties. The triple sweets are a combination of sugar enhanced as well as supersweets. This combination gives the corn longer holding ability as well as the superior taste of the sugar enhanced.

You can do a lot to enhance the taste of the sweet corn you buy. First make sure you buy from someone who picks fresh daily, and better yet, several times a day. Then keep the corn cool. DON'T buy corn and put it in the trunk of your car and leave it there for several hours. Refrigerate if possible, if not put it in the coolest part of the house. Husk just before cooking.

Prellwitz Produce corn is sold on the farm using the honor system so it is available during the season during daylight hours. We sell at the farm market in Ripon on Tuesday and Saturday in the morning. VandeBrink's Produce at Michael's in Ripon, The Grocery Bag in Green Lake. A new location to buy Prellwitz Produce swee corn this year is the Pickett Coop.