If you’ve peeled back the husk on an ear of Dawson Sweet Corn, one of the first things you’ll notice is the mix of yellow and white kernels.
That’s bicolor sweet corn—and this summer, there has been a whole lot of it coming out of our fields.
This is our first year growing sweet corn at Dawson Family Farm, and like most things around here, it started with an idea and quickly turned into something much bigger. We planted three acres and roughly 22,000 plants. Then came the waiting.
And waiting.
And then, seemingly all at once: Harvest Week.
So, What Exactly Are We Growing?
The simple answer is bicolor sweet corn.
Unlike the field corn you see covering acres and acres across Michigan, sweet corn is grown specifically to be eaten fresh. It’s harvested while the kernels are still tender, juicy and naturally sweet.
Bicolor simply describes what you see when you pull back the husk: a combination of golden-yellow and creamy-white kernels on the same ear.
We could give you a fancy seed variety name here, but there’s one small problem: nobody bothered to ask that question before we planted 22,000 of them.
We were apparently more concerned with growing good corn.
Fair enough.
From the Field to the Farm Stand
The thing about fresh sweet corn is that timing matters.
When an ear is ready, it’s ready. That means picking it, getting it out of the field and into somebody’s hands as quickly as possible.
For us, that has meant early mornings in the field, loading the UTV, sorting corn, filling crates and figuring out where all of it needs to go that day.
Some has headed to restaurants and retailers. Some has gone directly to customers. And some has traveled about as far as the corner of US-223 and Plank Road, where we built our first Dawson Family Farm stand.
Four guys, a field of corn and a homemade farm stand.
That was pretty much the business plan.
Why Fresh Matters
Sweet corn begins changing from the moment it’s picked. The sugars that give fresh corn its sweetness gradually convert to starch, which is one reason an ear eaten shortly after harvest can taste noticeably different from corn that’s spent days traveling through a traditional supply chain.
That’s the advantage of growing it here and selling it here.
Our corn doesn’t have a particularly complicated journey.
Field. Crate. Stand. Dinner table.
Sometimes all in the same day.
And after spending a harvest picking, hauling, delivering and selling the stuff, we’ve learned something else:
There are a surprising number of ways to eat sweet corn.
Boil it. Grill it. Cut it straight off the cob. Toss it with butter and salt. Or make our current favorite—an Elote-style corn salad with butter, Duke’s Mayo, Cotija cheese, Tajín and fresh lime.
But whatever you do with it, start with good corn.
We can help with that.
Dawson Family Farm
Grown here. Picked fresh. Shared locally. 🌽