Yesterday evening I noticed a few ears of the glass gem corn was dry enough to pull. The grasshoppers are moving in by the droves and I’m not sure what they’ll do with the corn so I’m pulling at least enough to get seeds for next year. The corn begins losing it’s really pretty colors . . they get duller as they dry. It still isn’t dry enough but we had a chance of rain last night (didn’t happen) and I wanted to pull it so I could look at it . . so I did.
Glass Gem Corn
Isn’t it amazing? And gorgeous? I keep saying to Vince “Can you believe we grew this?” I don’t think he’s as impressed a I am. Plant a little bitty corn seed and get 4 or 5 ears from each corn stalk. This year I mostly grew it just to see if I could and I can. The worms really did a number on it but I read that if, as soon as you see tassels forming, you drop a few drops of mineral oil “down the shaft”, that will stop the worms so I’ll try that next year. I’m happy to get as much as I got without using pesticides or harsh chemicals so if the mineral oil does the trick, I’ll be happy. If not, that’s fine too. I think I planted 20 seeds and probably 16 of those stalks produced 4 ears, one or two produced 3 ears and a couple produced 2 years. I’ll end up with 55 to 60 ears and each kernel is a seed for next year so I’ll have more than enough corn to plant next year.
One cup of dried corn kernels will equal about 1-1/2 cups of ground cornmeal. I’m thinking that once the corn is dry, it would probably take two of the cobs (average) to make 1 cup of dried kernels. The 20 stalks I planted took up about 1/4 of one of my rows so I think I’ll plan to grow 2 or 3 rows of it next year and see if I can get enough for all our cornmeal for a year.
Some people are happy to grow pretty flowers . . I’m happy to grow pretty edibles! 🙂
NancyA says
Judy, how is this different from Indian corn? Or is it just a variety of Indian corn?
Ramona says
Wow! This corn is gorgeous! The ear third from the left looks like you glued jelly beans to the ear. And I love the pastel ear, too. What fun!
Linda says
The oil trick works like a charm on corn. I used just cheap vegetable oil and an eye dropper, not one corn borer!
JudyL says
Great! Thanks for letting me know. I’d much rather use that than chemicals.
Judy Snider says
Hi Judy
Just for your info. You need to plant corn (any kind) in blocks of about 4 rows. You will get a better polinization. Hope I spelled that right. One thing I learned about gardening being married to a farmer.
Hope this helps next year.
Judy Snider
JudyL says
Where we live, there’s so much wind, I think I could plant one seed per acre and still get plenty of pollination. Since I only planted a small amount, I hand pollinated it and it did just fine.