Mom and Dad, in the thick of last year’s Sweet corn Season
See that photo? That’s what’s going on at my parents’ farm right now.
And I wish I was there.
Sweet Corn Season. It’s a capital-letter-phrase in our household, and it’s an experience that I’ve been looking forward to sharing. Let me tell you the story.
When I turned 12, my parents bought me a cheap, above-ground pool for my birthday to replace the old stock tanks we used to swim in (hashtag farmlife, am I right?). It came with a catch (of course): my brother and I were going to help pick and sell sweet corn the following summer to pay for it.
And thus was born the annual Sweet Corn project.
Starting that year, my dad planted a patch of sweet corn every year in the middle of one of the regular corn fields. Keep in mind that field corn and sweet corn are two completely different things.
Field corn is one of the major cash crops of America; it’s what’s growing when you see the acres of corn when you drive through the Midwest. It grows to complete maturity, when the kernels are dry and hard, then is harvested and used to feed cattle, sweeten our sodas, and make corn tortillas (and everything in between).
Sweet corn is the kind of corn you eat off the cob. Depending on the quality, it’s so sweet and tender that you’ll forget to put butter on it. Real sweet corn is sweet and hardly starchy. I’m not really sure what kind of corn they pack cans with in the store – it doesn’t resemble fresh sweet corn at all.
We ate buckets of sweet corn during Sweet Corn Season.