The window of time for planting corn is closing, but now is still a propitious moment to sow its seeds. There are a few rules for growing, harvesting, and post-harvest care of corn as follows:
If you intend to grow corn in the garden, plant seeds directly in the earth. While you can plant seeds in pots, transplanting them is not recommended. You will occasionally see corn growing in those plastic six-packs in the nursery, so it is possible to make a successful transfer from container to garden soil, but you’ll need to provide much greater care nursing your corn seedlings along once installed in the garden.
Plant a single variety of corn in any given plot. If you plant two different varieties together, cross-pollination will yield kernels of inferior quality.
Plant in a grid as opposed to rows. If you want to grow 20 plants, situate them in four rows of five plants as opposed to two rows of ten plants. A grid arrangement ensures full ears since pollen falling from tassels at the top of the plants will find the silks that need to be pollinated below — whether on the same plant or another close by. Plant a minimum of four rows to maximize wind pollination.Plant corn seeds or kernels one inch deep in compost-enriched soil. Space seeds 10 inches apart and rows two feet apart.
To prevent corn earworms from nibbling your kernels, apply mineral oil to the silks between three and seven days after they begin to form and just as they are turning brown. The earworms, which are actually moth larvae, will suffocate in the oil as they crawl down the silks. If, when harvesting an ear, you should see earworms, there is no reason to panic. The larvae are invariably found at the tip of the ear, leaving most of it intact. Once the damaged tip has been removed, the large remaining portion of the ear is suitable for consumption.
Corn is most flavorful at the moment of harvest so drop it into boiling water as soon as it’s detached from the plant and shucked. Should you wish to delay cooking, keep it in the refrigerator but don’t shuck it until you want to eat it.
Have you ever thought of growing corn for the purpose of popping its kernels? Not all corn can be popped, but many varieties are grown exclusively for that purpose. At heriloompopcornseed.com, you can find 70 such varieties. The Calico variety, available at stclarseeds.com, is especially suited to growing in Southern California. It is a multi-colored corn so that, in addition to popping, it can be used for decorative purposes. Popcorn is divided into white (with white to pale yellow kernels) and yellow (with yellow to orange to multi-colored kernels) varieties. White popcorn is less robust than yellow, but white popcorn also has a more delicate flavor and fewer hulls to get stuck in your teeth. Movie theater popcorn is yellow since it takes butter, caramel, and other toppings — without losing its shape — better than white popcorn.
Ears grown for popcorn require special harvesting and post-handling procedures. While sweet corn is harvested once the ears or full of kernels even while husks are still green, popcorn husks must be completely brown and dry before ears are ready for harvest. Once the popcorn ears are picked, and every layer of husks peeled away, they must undergo additional drying for three weeks to two months until kernels are primed for popping. You can dry the ears on a wooden table or hardwood floor. Since popcorn kernels must contain between 13.5 to 14% moisture, it is important that the kernels be given time to dry out but not completely. The conventional way of testing whether kernels are ready to be popped is simply to try popping a sample of them. Do this with an air popper which eliminates the need to heat oil in a pot for popping the kernels. Take a sample of kernels and see if they pop in the air popper, nearly all of which should pop if they have been dried to the proper extent. As for removal of kernels from their ears, you can do this by hand, after putting on gloves, using your thumbs to push and prod the kernels until they detach, starting from the bottom of the ears. An easier way of facilitating kernel removal is with a metal popcorn sheller. You simply push your ear of corn through the sheller which strips your popcorn kernels from the ear. A recommended sheller is made by Decker and sells for under $20 on the Internet.
The earliest use of corn for eating was in the form of popped corn, a kind of multi-colored flint corn, whose fossil evidence was discovered in Peru and dates back 7,000 years. The earliest instance of cultivated corn goes back 10,000 years to Meso-America, what is Central America and southern Mexico today. It eventually made its way north to southwestern North America from where it traveled by trade to the southeastern part of the continent and eventually to the northeast. The corn used at the first Thanksgiving was brought by the Wampanoag tribe. It was not corn on the cob that was eaten but either corn bread, hominy (corn kernels softened by soaking them in wood ash mixed with water) or porridge. Dent or field corn — so-called because of the indentation on the top of drying kernels — is the most widely grown corn since it is a major component of animal fed. Sweet corn was a mutation of dent corn and it was first cultivated by indigenous tribes of the Northeast. One of these tribes, the Iroquois, introduced sweet corn to European settlers in the late 18th century.
Although corn needs heat to develop properly, plants can be stressed in extremely hot weather, making them more susceptible to corn smut, a debilitating fungus that appears as swollen blue-gray growths upon the developing ears. In Mexico, however, this fungus is consumed as a delicacy in some locales and ears infected with it fetch a higher price than those that are fungus-free. Proper mulching and watering practices, such as root-directed drip irrigation and mulch to mitigate water stress, are preventive practices where corn smut growth is concerned.
California native of the week: Pacific gum plant (Grindelia stricta var. platyphylla) is a coastal, ground-hugging perennial that displays a blanket of two-and-a-half-inch daisies this time of year, but will be in bloom to one degree or another at all times. As a coastal plant, it welcomes wind and salty air, but will do better in half-day sun in inland gardens. Flower buds are covered with a tip of resin, from which their “gum plant” name derives, protecting the blooms from predators once they open. In the manner of most plants in the daisy family, it attracts a plethora of pollinating insects and butterflies. Foliage is also sticky with margins that are charmingly toothed. This is a prostrate species that grows eight inches tall and roots wherever its stems touch the ground, expanding to six feet or more. It is available at the Theodore Payne Foundation (theodorepayne.org) nursery in Sun Valley and from online vendors.
Has anyone reading this been successful at growing popcorn or, for that matter, sweet corn? If so, what variety would you recommend? If popcorn, how long did you dry it following harvest before it popped successfully? Your questions and comments, sent to joshua@perfectplants.com, as well gardening conundrums and successes, are always welcome.