The biggest secret of the corn is that, well, so far I have no secrets. This is my first year growing corn and I'm only growing it because Jeff picked up some seeds on a whim (Silver Queen Hybrid Sweet Corn from Cornucopia, which it would appear is a division of Renee's Garden Seeds sold at Orchard Hardware) so I'm pretty much learning as I go. And mostly what I'm learning is that corn GROWS - and, when it reaches a certain level, it grows FAST and up (vs. the melons which, as we all now know, grow out, and around and over and through -- but I digress).
Here are two pictures taken less than one week apart. The one above was taken on July 18. The one below taken July 24. You can't really tell from the photo, but the corn stalk grew like a foot in less than week and is now over 6-feet tall. As you can see from the photo, the little tendril thingies inside the top of the stalk emerged triumphantly from the stalk and changed color from green to a vibrant lavender. It almost doesn't even look like the same stalk, right? 
And if you want to see what it looked like less than two months ago when the first little seedlings poked up above the earth, check out the bottom photo on the blog post dated May 31.
I spread out the planting of the corn seeds -- three seeds each about 2-3 weeks apart -- so once this first stalk gets going, the others should follow and we should be having sweet white corn through fall. Can't wait!