How to Plant Peaches and Cream Corn, A Sweet Choice

Sweet corn, a staple crop across the United States, can be tricky for the home gardener. Knowing how to plant peaches and cream corn, a sweet variety, will help to bring you a successful crop.

How to Plant Peaches and Cream Corn in the Home Garden

“Peaches and Cream” corn is a hybrid variety corn that produces a sweet corn with bi-color kernels. It has become popular amongst home growers for its flavor, texture, and large ear size. They have a high disease resistance to rust damage making them an attractive variety to large scale growers as well. 

Planting Peaches and Cream sweet corn involves several steps to ensure a successful crop. Here’s a guide on how to plant it:

1.  Choosing the Right Location
2. Preparing the Soil
3. Planting the Seeds
4. Watering
5. Fertilizing
6. Weed Control
7. Pest and Disease Management
8. Harvesting
9. Stalks

Growing Corn in Home Gardens

1. Location

First of all, when choosing your corn plot location, remember that corn needs full sun, at least 6-8 hours of direct sunlight daily. The soil you grow in should be well-drained, rich in organic matter, and have a pH between 6.0 and 6.8. Loamy soil is ideal.

Corn takes around 75 days to grow from sowing to harvest, so make sure that you choose a location that you won’t need soon for another crop. Additionally, keep in mind that an airy location, not surrounded by structures or forest, is best.

2. Soil

To begin, till the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches to loosen it up. Incorporate compost or well-rotted manure into the soil to improve fertility, making sure that you end with a soft, well-drained soil. 

You may want to add fertilizer, instead of compost, before planting. You can apply a balanced fertilizer (e.g., 10-10-10) according to the package instructions. Alternatively, I like to use Epsoma Organic Garden Tone granules throughout my vegetable garden.

3. Planting

Sow seeds after the danger of frost has past, and the soil temperatures have warmed to at least 60°F. Your seed depth should be 1 inch deep and 9-12 inches apart in rows. Space the row width about 30-36 inches apart.

Corn is wind-pollinated, so it’s better to plant in blocks of short rows rather than fewer long rows to ensure proper pollination.

Inadequate pollination leads to ears with missing kernels or uneven development. By planting in blocks, the pollen has a better chance of reaching all the silks on the ears, resulting in more uniformly filled ears.

4. Heavy Feeder

Corn is an extremely hungry plant, needing lots of nutrients to properly grow. 

When the corn reaches 12-18 inches tall, side-dress with a nitrogen-rich fertilizer to promote healthy growth. Blood meal, granulated chicken manure, or Garden Tone are all good options for additional side dressing your corn.

Any good general vegetable fertilizer should work as well, just follow the fertilizer’s instructions on the bag.

5. Watering

Corn requires varying amounts of water during its growth stages. The most critical times for consistent moisture are during germination, the vegetative growth stage, and particularly during tasseling, silking, and ear development.

The plants have shallow roots that need to stay evenly watered, but not flooded. Water deeply with about an inch of water two to three times per week , ensuring the soil remains moist but not waterlogged.

6. Weed Control

One of the biggest problems when looking into how to plant peaches and cream corn is weeds. Grass and other undesirable plants will compete with corn in its earliest stages of germination and growth. Apply mulch around the plants to suppress weeds, and this will also help with water retention.

Regularly remove weeds by hand, being careful not to disturb the corn roots. My favorite tool to do this is the scuffle hoe, also known as the stirrup hoe. If you’ve spaced your seeds appropriately, you’ll be able to easily cultivate weeds without disturbing your corn.

7. Pest and Disease

Common pests include corn earworms and aphids. Consider using organic insecticides or row covers if pests become a problem. An organic solution that we’ve had good luck with is to drop a little mineral oil down the ears’ husks to deter caterpillars; however, this is extremely tedious if you have a large plot of sweet corn.

Understand that organic food has bugs. Most times, worms will affect the top of the ear more than the rest of the cob. An easy way to deal with this is to simply cut off the tip of the ear.

To prevent diseases like rust and smut, avoid overhead watering and ensure good air circulation.

8. Harvest

 Peaches and Cream sweet corn is usually ready to harvest about 75-80 days after planting when grown in optimal conditions. The ears are ready when you see browning of the ear silks. You can check by pulling back the top of the husk and poking a kernel. If it pierces easily to reveal a milky substance, it’s ready to harvest.

The best time to harvest is in the morning when the plants are still cool. Moreover, try not to pull corn immediately after a rain so that you’ll have super sweet kernels. To harvest, hold the ear and twist downward, pulling it away from the stalk. You’ll break the whole ear with the husk intact. 

Pro Tip: Take a bite and taste the sweet flavor right there in the garden. You might feel like wild woman, but you won’t be sorry.

9. Stalks

 After harvesting, compost the corn stalks or chop them up and till them back into the soil to add organic matter for the next planting. Corn make a ton of biomass that you can use for compost or mulch in your garden.

Alternatively, you can feed them to livestock animals such as cows and sheep.

Restoring Corn Plants

Corn grows during the warm season, which is during the time of year that most of us experience thunderstorms with high winds. Many growers find their corn stalks laying down after an intense wind storm. 

Believe it or not, those stalks will almost always stand back up in a few days. You can prop them up if you like, but if they have good anchor roots, they should be fine on their own.

Can I Grow Corn In My Raised Beds?

Yes, you can absolutely grow corn in raised beds. It’s quite fun to see a box of such tall plants of corn. Plant corn with the same spacing and blocking as suggested. It will help if you grow a few boxes next to one another for better pollination.

What About Cross Pollination?

Gardeners are very concerned with cross pollination if they’re going to save seeds from their heirloom plants. Remember, peaches and cream corn is a hybrid so saving the kernels to plant won’t guarantee a true daughter plant anyway.

If you’re growing another corn variety with seed that you want to save, ornamental corn for example, then you should do so at a different time. You can attempt to do this in the same year if you have a long growing season. Growing them in stages, six weeks apart, should help you achieve your goal.

Conclusion – How to Plant Peaches and Cream Corn

Following these steps on how to plant peaches and cream corn will ensure a successful harvest in late summer or early fall. You’re sure to reap the reward of long ears of sweetness that home gardeners everywhere are looking for.

Happy planting!

Donna and her family have been homesteading for most of their 20+  years together in some shape or fashion. She currently lives on their 20 acre farm where they grow as much food as possible. What started as a just a few laying hens, has grown into large gardens, pastured poultry, pork, and lamb. They are continuously evolving their small farm to not suit their family’s needs, but also providing to their local community. Donna’s favorite part of the family farm is her self-built micro-dairy, where she gets to love on dairy cows while serving her local community. Milking, cheesemaking, and processing dairy have become the soul of their homestead and the center of their farm.