Maize, of which sweetcorn is just one variety, was first cultivated 10,000 years ago in Central America. Maize used in Zimbabwean and Afro-Caribbean cuisine is a white-coloured, hard-textured grain, which is made into flour and cooked as a porridge. This maize is not sweet, and quite starchy tasting. It needs a longer growing season, so should be started into growth by early April. You will need somewhere to keep it growing frost-free until May or June when it can be planted out as ordinary sweetcorn but at rather wider spacing, as the plants are slightly larger. Harvest is late, often into October.

Growing calendar for maize

Basilia Gondo

Basilia Gondo. Photo: Sara Heitlinger


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I’m Basilia Gondo, from Zimbabwe. A mother of five girls and six grandchildren. I am 72 years old. Married. We grow our own food because it’s got the taste we want, the taste which we...

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Basilia on Zimbabwean Maize