Corn Nuts

We, like industrial America, value corn highly. The difference is that we are not going to make high-fructose syrup, ethanol, or plastic out of it. We are going to eat it! And, of course, feed the stalks to our compost.

We grow three categories of corn here, for three different purposes: flour corn, sweet corn, and popcorn.

The flour corn doubles as a high-calorie multi-purpose food and high-biomass compost crop. According to How to Grow More Vegetables an intermediate yield for flour corn is 17 lb/100 sq ft for seed and 50 lb/100 sq ft for air-dry biomass. Which is a whole lot of seed and stalk. Last year we came close to the intermediate seed yield and exceeded the biomass yield in two beds.

And different varieties will perform at different levels.

But high yield isn't everything - we aim for aesthetics, too. The photo above shows, in order, Bloody Butcher, Hickory King, Seneca Red Stalker, and Hopi Blue. Talk about fun colors of cornbread! On the right is some Oaxaca Green from the Ecology Action site.

At the Golden Rule Garden, since we are producing food for a community (as well as learning, teaching, and researching) sweet corn also plays an important role. Who doesn't like sweet corn? This year we are growing two open-pollinated varieties! Those of you familiar with sweet corn or seed catalogs know the prevalence of hybridized sweet corn varieties, so I might as well take a moment to talk about them.
Many plants (corn, for instance) spread and accept pollen freely. This is a wonderful way for them to find new genes and increase their diversity, because the pollen doesn't always land on the same variety from which it originated. If this foreign variety accepts the pollen, then it is cross-pollinated. The seed resulting from this cross-pollination, a hybrid, will grow a very nice plant, mixing characteristics of the two parents. And, most often, this new hybrid plant will produce either sterile seed or seed that grows into plants with unpredictable characteristics. Not so helpful if you want to save seed from year to year.
Seed companies began selling hybrid corn in the first half of the 20th century, and it has sold well to this day for two reasons: first, because of a condition called "hybrid vigor" that predictably occurs when two inbred varieties cross. The first generation of this hybridization is taller, bigger, and higher-yielding than either of the parents. Following generations of this hybrid plant will be much smaller and, as mentioned above, have unpredictable characteristics. The second reason it sells well is that it is almost the only thing sold. Go ahead and search your seed catalogs for non-hybrid sweet corn. Burpee's website offers 34 varieties, 2 of them open-pollinated, the rest hybrid. Because corn crosses so easily, there are few farmers or gardeners who go to the trouble to save their own seed. So if they are going to buy seed anyway, why not buy seed for vigorous, high-yielding plants? An added bonus for seed companies is that the details of what varieties they are crossing are proprietary information, so even if you wanted to go to the trouble to hybridize plants you would have to do your own years of research.
Ok, so that's the deal on hybrids. Look forward in the next month to a post about hand-pollination of corn, which is the best way for a small garden in the midst of corn country to save their own pure seed.
Finally, we are growing one variety of popcorn: Vermont Red Kernel. Margo and I are regular popcorn eaters, so we want to invest in that knowledge now. The downside of both popcorn and sweet corn, in Grow Biointensive terms, is that they create much less biomass. Flour corn might produce 48 pounds of air-dry stalks per 100 sq. ft. for compost material, while a good sturdy sweet corn may only yield 24. Probably less. And popcorn will probably be less yet. I'll let you know when we get the yields this year.
On the right is Jerry, a past intern, with his [open-pollinated] flour corn, 14 feet tall.

The First Zucchini!

I don't know whether to bounce with joy or to cringe in fear, but here they are: the first two zucchini of the season. There are present signs of many more on the way, and a bed that threatens to pour summer squash forth in Tribble-like abundance.
In the photo at right: does Margo have the zucchini, or does the zucchini have Margo?

Knee High by the 4th of July?

Maybe if you are that Chinese basketball player. Our garden is growing like all-get-out at this time of year, and the hot weather we got last week pushed some of our heat-loving crops to do great things. On the right is a photo of our Hopi Blue flour corn. Half of this 240 sq ft bed is planted with seed I saved from last year using hand pollination as recommended in Seed to Seed, a book published by Seed Savers Exchange (an organization advocating the use of open-pollinated seed, as opposed to the artificial processes of hybrid and genetic modification). In the next month or two it will get up to eight or nine feet and tassel, and I will fine-tune my hand-pollinating skills.

Amaranth is another of the main-season crops we tout so highly. Hailing from central America, amaranth was the staple food of the Aztecs and the backbone of their culture and worship. Recognizing this, the Spanish Conquistadores banned it and actively destroyed it wherever it was encountered. It has been theorized that, had that not happened, amaranth would be to our culture what corn is now (maybe aside from all the recently discovered derivatives). It produces a brilliant plume of flowers that Victorians might have called beautiful, others might call gaudy. The seed is tiny but plentiful, and can be boiled, ground, and, yes, popped. The young greens are also tasty.
Quinoa was first cultivated high in the Andes of South America, so you might wonder why we'd attempt it way down here. Happily, it can grow anywhere from 12,000 feet down to sea level, depending on the variety. Its claim to fame among health food fans is that it is a whole protein, containing all of the amino acids that humans need. Plus it cooks in about 20 minutes and take on flavors easily (so don't eat it alone expecting to be impressed). The seeds grow naturally coated with saponin (a soapy substance) that is so bitter that birds don't bother it. The good news is that when you buy it in the health food store it has already been washed free of the bitterness. The bad news is that the store won't make house calls to wash the quinoa you grow yourself. We're still working here on the most efficient way to process it.
Rye stands out in this post as an over-wintered crop instead of a main-season one. It is one of my favorites of all we have here, between its beauty, its height, and its usefulness. The tallest cereal crop we grow, its ready tendency to host microorganisms (like the poisonous fungus ergot) makes its grain the prime ingredient for sourdough starter (a yeast kept alive through a mixture of rye flour and water). And we thrive on sourdough bread in this house. Like all the other crops I mention in this post, one of rye's biggest chores within the garden is as a compost material. The mature stalks can be easily saved for months or years after threshing to provide mature material when you are ready to build a pile. Rye also has an incredible root system, which means good things for soil quality in the garden.
Finally, Jerusalem Artichoke, a.k.a Sunchoke. While it produces an incredibly tall stalk, the flowers are all pretty small. The edible part of the plant is the tuber, which has, depending on what you read and whom you ask, a nutty flavor, a starchy flavor, or a flavor like to that of an artichoke. Which leads to the name. There is much speculation as to the origin of the name "Jerusalem", for instance that it may be a corruption of the Italian "girasole", following the sun. But I have discovered that whenever one puts "Jerusalem" in front a common garden noun it generally means "kind of like but not actually a". For instance, Jerusalem Sage and Jerusalem Cricket.
All of these crops, besides the rye, are in for the main-season long-haul, and will be harvested sometime in September or October. Having shown them as juveniles, you can expect some full-grown images from us later on...