OK Gandle, I am sure you are up to composing an ode to sweet corn. I'll think on it as well, as I am singing sweet songs to my crop this year. My first and main crop was butter 'n cream. My second crop is .......blush.....forget the name but it's an old fashioned open pollinated yellow. It has a super fast maturity date and that's a plus when one is trying to squeeze in one last planting. Agree with you, not as sweet, but tastes like we remember real corn tasting. I planted it because some garden space opened up and one can NEVER grow too much corn. I started picking my corn way on the early side and my dh is revolting, telling me to wait until the ears are nice and plump. Well, excuse me, they were delicious and not at all wasteful as so much shall come on so closely that better to eat on the small tender size than waste it. He's not the one who'll have to get it canned or frozen. I got really lucky with the rains this year for such a dry summer. They came at pollination and are coming as the kernels fill. The ears are very well filled out, not missing many kernels at all. The coons haven't found it yet. Did I say the coons haven't found it yet? The deer have, but after munching the top out of one plant and leaving their signature hoof print left it alone, preferring the soy bean fields behind and down the road toward town. rofl. Even now that the locally grown is in season, the prices at market are holding from 35 to 55 cents an ear. My corn is throwing out consistantly two ears per stalk. Whoopee! This years I promised myself we'd have so much of it, we'd founder on it.

Ken, Wow, you're right about the broccoli. I wouldn't dream of freezing it without blanching it first. I never got the super sweet or the sugar enhanced corn until last year when a neighbor who has come from a farming family and is a farmer herself sold me some corn called "You Got To Have It" or something very similar. It is unbelievably sweet and my husband doesn't really care for it. I don't know why the non-blanching works for me and others I know, it just does. When it doesn't, I will start blanching it again. Carol, I will send you an email with my email address in it and will try to help get your DH through getting his disability fight with the VA settled favorably. We have been down this same road only with a different problem. Everyone we know that has been in Vietnam and now has diabetes is receiving a disability due to the fact that the VA has proven the Agent Orange=diabetes. Will not go into it anymore in this post, but I will get info to you. This is very important.

I put up sweet corn that we grow every year, but I cut it off the cob cream style. I do it this way for two reasons, my corn has worms (we don't spray it) and I can cut around them and it doesn't take as much space in the freezers. I have two freezers and two refrigerator freezers and I don't want any more. We grow Ambrosia and it is a super sweet bi-color corn. My DH used to grow Silver Queen and another corn and let them cross polinate to make bi-color, but I bought Ambrosia seed one year and we have never went back. We have probably about 3 acres of corn, with three plantings about two weeks apart, so putting a little oil on the tassel is out for me. I will put up a few of the good (no worms) ears whole every year, but I just wash, silk and blanch. When we have a few ears left over that I have cooked I cut them off the cob whole kernel for soups and casseroles. At the end of the last planting when the corn is just almost getting too hard I grill several ears and cut them off the cob, whole kernel for roasted corn and black bean salsa. My DIL and I put up 40 quarts and I think 37 pints of cream style corn this year. If you grow your own corn and like sweet corn try Ambrosia seed. Although the last two years we have had a hard time finding it and it is a little expensive, but worth it for us. Can you tell that we like corn!

Many people just toss the ears with the husk on in a freezer bag and freeze. They say that's closest to garden fresh and doesn't have the over cooked taste of corn that has been cooked for 10 minutes. And it sure is easy! I have never done it but have eaten it when other people have frozen it that way. I wouldb't be keeping it for more than 7 or 8 months though....not that it would hurt you but the enzymes that you haven't destroyed by boiling it might cause a loss of quality. Linda C