Dylan Piotter said in the 23 years he has helped his family harvest and sell sweetcorn, this year was the best growing season. “The weather was perfect,” Dylan Piotter said. “Ideal is the only word I can think to describe it. I cannot think of the last time the weather was this nice for sweetcorn.”

NEW ULM – For 23 years the Piotter family has sold sweetcorn directly to customers from the back of a pickup truck parked near South Payne Street.

Tuesday the sweetcorn selling season came to a close. Kendall Piotter and his son Dylan Piotter picked the last ears of sweetcorn from their farm patch in Jeffers. Looking back on the most recent season –father and son agree–this was likely their best growing year for sweetcorn since they started.

“The weather was perfect,” Dylan Piotter said. “Ideal is the only word I can think to describe it. I cannot think of the last time the weather was this nice for sweetcorn.”

Kendall Piotter agreed with his son’s summary. He said their sweetcorn yields were great this year, but he was hearing the same from other farmers.

“I hear the old farmers saying the sweetcorn is greener than they’ve ever seen it,” Kendall said. “It rained at the right time and in the right amount,” Kendall Piotter said. “The only real problem this season was the haze.”

Even the recent heavy rains that hit last weekend did not hurt the sweetcorn. Dylan Piotter said it did make the last few days of picking corn fairly muddy.

Kendall Piotter said he typically would physically pick the corn, but admitted the extra mud made it challenging at his age. He let 28-year-old Dylan do the picking this time.

Kendall Piotter said the family started selling the corn on Payne Street for the kids. Once they started walking they needed to give the kids an activity and it worked.

“Its like the corn,” he said. “We fed and water them and now their not so little.”

At 28, Dylan Piotter has been selling sweetcorn with his family most of his life and has got it down to a system. He knows how to interact with the customers. Many of them are regular customers who will stop in every time they’re open to buy a dozen ears of corn.

Dylan Piotter said each bag they sell has at least 12 ears of corn it. Sometimes a bag might have a smaller bonus ear if its smaller. Dylan said they can typically fit 200 or 250 dozen ears in the back of their truck. They do not sell out of corn every day, but most days they do

Part of the success is their location. Kendall Piotter said since the start of the operation 23 years ago, they have parked their truck in the driveway of LeRoy and Carol Schapekahm – his father and mother-in-law. It has been an ideal sales location with plenty of traffic coming down 10th South past the driveway. Kendall Piotter said his in-laws were great about letting him use the driveway, but he made sure to give them a few bags of sweetcorn each year.

The Piotter family agreed one of the best part selling corn directly off the street was being together as a family, but also seeing the different neighbors stop by and talk to them.

“People enjoy visiting,” Kendall said. “You become a member of the community.”

With the sweetcorn season done, the Piotters are looking forward to field corn season. They are hopeful it will match with sweetcorn, but Kendall said you cannot tell how the season is going until the harvest is in the bin.