Mr Wilkins Micawber was famous for saying that “something will turn up” in Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield. I think this eternal optimist must secretly organise our Harvest Lunch. Every year it’s a mystery where the food and the people come from.

The two organisers are anxious about whether there will be enough to satisfy 40 hungry people. When the time comes more than 50 turn up and fight over seats.

But the table at the back is loaded and it’s a hugely enjoyable feast with friends and neighbours. Long may it continue!

This year, we harvested our sweetcorn specially for the lunch. We grew two varieties, ‘Lark’ and an experimental variety that was unnamed.

I hope it’s obvious that ‘Lark’ (on the left in the picture) was much better than the other, even though they were sown on the same day and planted out at the same time on the same plot.

It was plumper, sweeter and easier to eat. ‘Lapwing’, another bird variety from the same American breeding programme, is on its way and said to be even better. We shall see.

‘Lark’, a widely available F1 hybrid which I got from Thompson & Morgan, is an AGM winner judged to be excellent by the RHS. It has hybrid vigour and this improves growth.

But all F1 hybrids tend to germinate more easily and resist disease better, although the seeds are expensive.

Sweetcorn varieties have improved greatly in the last 40 years and warmer autumns have helped.

So I can produce a crop every year using ‘Lark’, which is listed as a second early under extra-tender sweet. Cobs should be eaten quickly before the sugar turns to starch.

Corn has been grown and eaten for at least 6,000 years in central and southern Mexico and central America. Seeds were saved from an annual native grass, Zea mexicana, which was grown as a fodder crop. The ears with the largest seeds were eaten by people and seeds were saved.

The Iroquois tribe gave some cobs (which they called Papoon) to the early settlers in 1779. It soon became a popular vegetable in southern and central regions of the United States.

This is a warm-weather crop. So seeds need sowing in late April or May in small pots or modules. Germination takes about seven days in warm, light conditions with temperatures between 18 and 20C.

Gradually acclimatise your young plants and do not put them outside until after the end of May when the frosts have gone. Handle them carefully as the plants are easily damaged at the root. For this reason they cannot be pricked out.

Create a block, not narrow rows, as these are wind pollinated plants. Space them nine inches apart (22 cm) in rows 18 inches (45 cm) apart. Keep plants well watered and mulch during dry periods. Enjoy them in the autumn.

n On Thursday,November 5 at 8pm I am giving a lecture on The Winter Garden at The Said Business School, for the University of Oxford’s Botanic Garden and Harcourt Arboretum. Jenny Jowett is also holding an exhibition of botanical art on the same evening. Tickets cost £10 and include a glass of wine.