Corn Sweet Early Gem Seeds
$3.90
Unit price perZea mays
Early Gem is a quick-maturing open-pollinated Sweet Corn producing sweet yellow cobs on medium-sized plants. Typically producing around two cobs per plant, it is a reliable home garden variety particularly useful where the growing season is shorter or an earlier corn harvest is wanted.
The tender yellow kernels have a good traditional sweet corn flavour and are best harvested while plump and milky. Enjoy fresh from the cob, steamed, boiled or grilled, or cut the kernels from the cob for salads, fritters, soups, salsas and preserving.
Early Gem has a tidy, upright growth habit and generally does not produce side shoots or tillers, concentrating its growth into the main stem and developing cobs. Like all corn, however, it is a hungry crop and performs best in fertile soil with generous feeding and consistent moisture.
Corn originated in the Americas and has been cultivated and selected by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years, developing into an extraordinary diversity of colours, forms and culinary types. Open-pollinated varieties such as Early Gem can be seed saved from year to year, allowing growers to maintain the variety and select plants particularly well adapted to their own conditions.
Approximately 60 seeds per packet
When to Plant (Australia)
Tropics: Spring to autumn
Subtropics: Spring to summer
Mild climates: Spring to early summer
Cold climates: Spring after the last frost to early summer
Planting / Sowing
Sow directly into warm soil approximately 2–3 cm deep. Space plants approximately 20–30 cm apart, with rows 50–75 cm apart. Plant in blocks of several short rows rather than a single long row to encourage effective wind pollination and well-filled cobs.
Corn is a heavy feeder and benefits from fertile soil, generous organic matter and additional feeding during active growth. Water deeply during dry weather, particularly during flowering, pollination and cob development.
Harvest when the silks have browned and the kernels are plump and release a milky liquid when pierced. Sweet corn is at its best soon after harvest, before the natural sugars in the kernels begin converting to starch.
If saving seed, isolate Early Gem from other corn varieties flowering at the same time. Corn is readily wind pollinated over considerable distances, so substantial physical isolation or sufficiently staggered planting times are required to maintain the variety true to type.
Due to quarantine restrictions, TAS has an 800g limit per each seed variety. Not available for delivery to Western Australia.
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