Harvest Valley Farms
"We Picked it Fresh For You Today!"

Farm Market

Why is our Sweet Corn the BEST?

Harvest Valley Farms grows about 22 acres of Sweet Corn. On these 22 acres we grow six different varieties. There are three main "types" of varieties on the market right now. These three types are sugar enhanced, super sweet, and synergistic. Sugar enhanced is sweet but very tender, super sweet is very sweet but yet very hard, and synergistic is 75% sugar enhanced and 25% super sweet. Sugar enhanced is an excellent fresh market variety but has a very poor shelf life of about 48hrs. Super sweet is an OK fresh market and has a very long shelf life of about 16 days. Synergistic is an excellent fresh market variety and has a good shelf life of about 12 days. We grow 12 crops of sweet corn, one being super sweet (because of it's superb freezing characteristics) and the rest synergistic.

All of the sweet corn found in the grocery stores and most of your fresh market is super sweet varieties. This is because it has a very long shelf life and has very tough kernels so it can be harvested with a machine. The outcome is a very sweet taste but yet very hard to bit into.

Synergistic varieties are unable to be harvested with a machine (the kernels would get smashed) therefore it has to be harvested by hand, which is very expensive for a larger operation.

We harvest all of our corn by hand and sell it locally within 24 hours. Because we do not have the expence of shipping, we are able to sell a much high quality product at the same price, if not lower, than most sweet corn growers in the area.

We also preserve our quality by harvesting early in the morning and icing every bag as soon as we take it back to the farm.

Besides 30+ years of trial and error, it is the practices above that truely prove that our sweet corn is the BEST!

How to properly cook our sweet corn

Believe it or not, cooking sweet corn can easily ruin a quality product very fast. One usually purchases sweet corn from multiple different farms/stores throughout the season. Because of this, there are different varities and qualities being bought which in turn depends on how long an ear of corn is cooked. Our corn is very consistant because we grow alot less than our marketing demand. This allows us to pick it all when it's ready and sell it immediately.

Personally I prefer our corn raw, but here is how to cook it in order to acheive maximum flavor and tenderness.

1) Place a pot of water, enough to submerge all of the corn, on the stove.
2) Allow water to come to a heavy boil.
3) Place corn into the boiling water and time it for exactly 3 minutes after the water starts to boil again
4) After 3 minutes remove corn and immediately place in a container of iced water.
5) Time and remove after 20 seconds. (this stops corn from cooking any longer but is still hot enough to melt butter on)
6) Melt butter and place salt or pepper as you like, but I recommend eating without anything.
7) Enjoy!

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