Popcorn!

[nicky]

I tried growing popcorn for the 1st time this year. I grew Cherokee Long Ear, Strawberry Popcorn and Miniature Blue. The Cherokee Long Ear performed the best. They all did very well & nothing ate the ears before I could harvest them! Next year it will get double the space - and most likely pollinate more evenly. Even with my spotty pollination, I got 3 quarts from an 8x4 stand of popcorn! I have dried some in the oven & am going to try it soon! The colours are gorgeous. I just hope that it pops!

corn-various.jpg corncherokee.jpg corn-dark.jpg

Anyone else recommend a favourite variety to try?

[ginger2778]

Originally Posted by nicky

I tried growing popcorn for the 1st time this year. I grew Cherokee Long Ear, Strawberry Popcorn and Miniature Blue. The Cherokee Long Ear performed the best. They all did very well & nothing ate the ears before I could harvest them! Next year it will get double the space - and most likely pollinate more evenly. Even with my spotty pollination, I got 3 quarts from an 8x4 stand of popcorn! I have dried some in the oven & am going to try it soon! The colours are gorgeous. I just hope that it pops!

Attachment 29520 Attachment 29521 Attachment 29522

Anyone else recommend a favourite variety to try?

Too pretty to cut up. Nice.
_Marsha

[Mark0820]

Your popcorn harvest is very nice. I'm glad to hear you had success growing it. I am planning on trying it for the first time next year. Here are some varieties I have been looking at in catalogs:

Cherokee long ear (which you grew)
Dakota Black
Red Beauty
Pennsylvania Butter (supposed to be one of the best tasting based on seed catalogs)
Smoke Signals (a wide range of colors)
Tom Thumb

[nicky]

Anything with Butter in the name sounds good to me!

The black ear (from the Cherokee Long Ear package) is very striking in person. It is so dark that it looks like it would stain your hands if you touch it! I would imagine that Dakota Black would be similar.

Thanks for the ideas!

[Tormato]

I hope the oven didn't dry it out too much.
Moisture content should be about 13 to 14.5 %.

Pennsylvania Butter also goes by the longer name of Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored.

Tormato

(who has several experimental popcorns, that didn't find their way into the garden in 2012)

[habitat_gardener]

I planted a half dozen varieties this year, but I had only a small area and planted them too close together, so I'm not expecting a big yield. However, the Red Beauty ears are the largest, so I am expecting at least some harvest. The squirrels got most of my sweet corn before I noticed it was ready to pick, but don't seem to have harvested any of the popcorn. Or maybe they're too busy with the sunflowers.

Last year I planted 3 seeds of Japonica Striped Maize from the seed bank and got several small ears.

[loeb]

Very pretty popcorn I like the best those black on black cob, and pink one.. what are they? I have some seeds of mini Blue, but I've decided to plant parching corn this year instead of popcorn.. I'm very curious how it will turn, it's still ripening in the field.. Parching corn is practically unknown here.
I have mini Blue popcorn, Strawberry, and one no-name yellow. I think I will plant this all next year.. I have read that there is "butterfly" type of pop and "mushroom". Is there any heirloom popcorn in mushroom type?

[nicky]

Tormato - I was going to follow the Mother Earth News instructions on drying popcorn - but it seemed kind of overkill to me too. So I left it in the oven 1/4 length of the recommended time, with the door open! I figure that I can dry more if needed.
I hope that you get to your experimental ones next year (:

habitat gardener - googled Red beauty & it looks great! Found this blog while googling:
Fennel & Fern. The Glass Gem is stunning!

loeb - the black cob was from the Cherokee Long Ear & the pink was Strawberry Popcorn.

[kath]

Love the idea of trying to grow my own popcorn but have never tried it because we don't have any way to grow it without the chance it'll cross with the sweet corn that we love to plant in succession from early to as late in the season as we can grow it. Eating it plain and air popped, the sound of Pennsylvania Dutch Butter Flavored is making me want to figure out a way.

I read that some people sprout and then eat Strawberry Popcorn kernels. Anyone here ever try it? Supposedly the red kernels aren't as crunchy as the others.

[loeb]

Now I'm puzzled. My Strawberry popcorn is totally different corn.. Kernels are pointy, dark red, and whole ear is short and fat. 2 different popcorns with the same name ? But your pink one is cute

[nicky]

I think that yours is the correct one - according to everything that I have seen online. I got mine in a group swap... it is pretty though!

[Mark0820]

The Glass Gem corn is pretty amazing. I have never seen anything quite like it. I just might get in line for some seed (once I find out what the price is).

[Tormato]

Strawberry is dark red, short and fat.

Gary

[habitat_gardener]

When I got to my garden yesterday, the squirrels were in the corn. All the large cobs of Red Beauty were gone, and they'd started on the 3-inch cobs of everything else. Quite a few cornstalks were bent over and broken, too.

I've always liked squirrels (and still do), but grrr.

Actually, I didn't see any Red Beauty remnants, so it's possible that was human predation. But I did see shreds of cornsilk and other evidence that the smaller cobs were eaten nearby, including munched kernels on top of my compost bin.

I noticed that most of the sunflowers from surrounding plots were gone, too. The squirrels ate my sunflowers first (I've been joking that they like mine because they've been planting sunflowers in my garden plot for a few years), and I'd been wondering why everyone else still had sunflowers.

I wonder what they'll go for next?

[Tormato]

Originally Posted by habitat_gardener

When I got to my garden yesterday, the squirrels were in the corn. All the large cobs of Red Beauty were gone, and they'd started on the 3-inch cobs of everything else. Quite a few cornstalks were bent over and broken, too.

I've always liked squirrels (and still do), but grrr.

Actually, I didn't see any Red Beauty remnants, so it's possible that was human predation. But I did see shreds of cornsilk and other evidence that the smaller cobs were eaten nearby, including munched kernels on top of my compost bin.

I noticed that most of the sunflowers from surrounding plots were gone, too. The squirrels ate my sunflowers first (I've been joking that they like mine because they've been planting sunflowers in my garden plot for a few years), and I'd been wondering why everyone else still had sunflowers.

I wonder what they'll go for next?

Some air?

www.liveleak.com/view?i=f5d_1172741350