sweet corn
Look out -low, I see fireworks! No Fourth of July picnic in New Jersey would be the same without sweet corn on the cob! New Jersey farmers harvest about 60 million pounds of sweet corn each year. Salem, Burlington, and Gloucester are the three counties that grow the most sweet corn. People use many unusual words when they talk about corn. The seeds are called . They are attached to a long, round, woody . A typical cob can hold 800 corn kernels. We call a corn cob with the seeds attached an of corn. The corn seeds or kernels are protected by a leafy covering called a . To eat the seeds, you must remove the husk. When you remove the husk, you the corn. So if your mom tells you to get the corn ready to eat, you can say, “Aww, shucks!�
Sweet corn can be be white, yellow, or “bi-color� -- a mix of white and yellow. Unlike most vegetables, corn is not pollinated by bees or other insects. Corn is a grass plant that is pollinated by the wind. A corn plant has male and female parts. The male part, called the tassel, grows up from the very top of the plant and looks like a little tree with branches that are covered by sticky pollen.
The tassels at the top are the male parts of the corn plant. The silks in the middle are the female parts. Spring Brook Farms, Elmer, NJ;
An ear of corn is actually the flower, and the corn’s female parts are the silky strands you can see growing out of the ears. In order for the plant to be