Locally grown sweet corn available Corn is native to the New World and has been a valuable food crop at least since the Incas cultivated it. Modern corn is actually a tall annual grass, and all kinds -- including ornamental corn, popcorn, field corn and sweet corn -- are varieties of a single species known as Zea mays. Zea is the Greek name for a cereal.

Sweet corn, also called sugar corn, is one of the most delicious of American vegetables. Nothing tastes like an ear of corn cooked as soon as it is picked. There are now ultra-sweet and super-sweet hybrids, as well as bicolor hybrids with one super-sweet parent that are bred for enhanced sugar. The sugar in these sweeter hybrids does not convert to starch as rapidly as in standard hybrids.

Sweet corn is among the easiest vegetables to grow provided it is given a sunny location and really fertile soil.

JIM GILBERT