Though corn requires plenty of space in the vegetable garden, it is hard to beat its taste and tenderness, especially when freshly-picked. The key to high quality sweet corn is rapid growth, adequate soil moisture and nutrients, and harvesting the ears at optimum maturity. In most cases, however, sucrose is rapidly converted to starch if the corn is not cooked, frozen or refrigerated just after harvest.
Starches make the corn less tender and less sweet.
In some monoecious plants, male and female parts are in the same flower. In corn, male and female flowers are in different locations - the male flowers form a tassel which is at the top of the plant. The female flower is located at the junction of leaves and stem. These silks are pollen-receiving tubes. Each silk leads to a kernel, and pollen must land on all silks for the ear to fill out completely with kernels.