Sweet corn now ready for eatin’ Harvest in full swing at Troy farm

TROY – The sweet corn season in Maine has arrived along with the August heat, and you can almost hear the butter dripping off happy chins. Even though many farmers got a late start planting this spring because of heavy rain, the harvest is now in full swing.

Whether they are grilled, roasted, steamed or boiled, hundreds of thousands of ears of corn will be consumed over the next eight weeks, and although Maine sweet corn may be smaller in stature than corn from other states, it has a reputation for having the sweetest taste around.

The sweet corn grown in Maine in 2004 was 2,300 acres, yielding $3.96 million in production, topping New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island.

Some of the sweetest corn in the state is grown in a belt of farms from Augusta to Bangor, many in the Dixmont, Route 9 and Corinna area.

“There is just something in the ground here that makes it sweeter,” said Mark Rollins, who along with his father, Paul Jones, helps his uncle, veteran farmer Reginald Heald, 81, tend the crops. “Our customers don’t really care if the ears are smaller. They just know it tastes good.”

At the Heald Farm, three generations have been growing sweet corn for 100 years, specializing most recently in bicolor varieties such as Sugar and Gold. The traditional white farmhouse and barns on Route 9 were surrounded this week by fields of lush green corn topped by golden tassels. A green tent offered corn, cukes, squash and hay for sale by the side of the road.

You are on your honor when you buy at the stand; a plastic, unlocked box holds the money and you make your own change. “We’ve never had a problem,” said Rollins, a fact that many out-of-state shoppers find amazing.

Impatient corn lovers began asking Rollins last month if the corn was ready yet. “How much longer?” he heard each time he went into a local store. “We ended up pretty much on schedule, but I would guess this year’s crop across the state is down by 35 percent because of all that early rain,” Rollins said.

Heald first began growing corn for the now defunct Portland Packing Co., which had a facility in Unity. Today, Jones and Rollins truck their vegetables to several farmers markets, have their own roadside stand and park in downtown Bangor to sell off the back of their truck.

“The corn pays for the insurance, the taxes and to keep the property up,” said Jones.

But the way Heald began picking just after World War I is the same way used today: by hand. “You feel it. It’s not ready if it is soft. You could pick in the dark, just by the feel,” said Rollins.

Each stalk on the Heald farm’s five acres of corn will produce one to two ears of corn, some of which is lost to crows, raccoons, skunks and porcupines. “We just make sure we plant enough for them, too,” Rollins said.

“There is no way of picking corn to sell except by hand,” said Rollins. “I get up at 5:30 and pick before market each day. By the end of the season, I’m done.” Rollins supplements his summer vegetable earnings by working for SAD 3 and holding a part-time minister’s position at a Unity church.

Rollins and Jones do the picking and selling while Reginald takes care of the machinery and counts the money. In an average season, the trio will sell 100 dozen ears of corn a day.

Rollins grows three super sweet varieties that take 67 to 77 days to mature.

“It’s been a good season,” Rollins said Monday. “The price is a little bit high, but people have to remember, the price of gas has gone way up.”

As the morning mist burned off the farm Monday, the three men discussed the best way to cook sweet corn. “A few people do some fancy things, but the best way is to steam it,” said Rollins. Grilling is good, added Jones. Heald has been known to eat a full dozen a day: four for breakfast, four for lunch and four for dinner. “Don’t cook it too long,” he warned. “It will get mushy.”

Buttering the corn is best done by rolling it on a block of butter, they agreed, though buttering a piece of bread and then rolling the cob on the bread is another method. “This time of year in Maine, everyone’s butter is flattened out from rolling corn,” said Rollins.