# Garden roll call: Corn



## goshengirl (Dec 18, 2010)

Let's share!  What kinds of corn are you growing, for what purpose, and how well does it do? Let use know where you're located, too.

This is my first year producing any corn - I'm in southern Ohio, zone 6, growing the following:

Sweet corn (hybrid):
Gotta Have It!: good, sweet flavor - yum! started these in the green house and then transplanted - they did fine, but only one ear per stalk
Northern Xtra (yellow and bi-color): delicious, and most stalks had at least two ears (prefer this over the Gotta Have It)
Silver Queen: excellent health, at least two ears per stalk, delicious! Will grow again

Flour corn:
Black Aztec: germination rate about 5% - will not try growing again
Blue Hopi: germination rate about 50%, healthy two-ear stalks, deep beautiful blue (have yet to dry out and grind)
Bloody Butcher: germination rate about 70%, very tall and healthy - this is my latest planting so I can't comment yet beyond that)

I have to be careful how many varieties I grow because of cross pollination (planting dates are laboriously plotted out, and I used the greenhouse to start items early and extend the season). I'll probably settle on one sweet corn (since they're hybrid and can't save seeds) and then focus on flour/Indian corns. We intend to use Bloody Butcher (red) as an animal feed as well as flour corn, and I'd like a blue corn (will try Blue Clarage next year) and a white corn (will try Texas Gourd next year).

How's everyone else doing?


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## siletz (Aug 23, 2011)

We grow Painted Mountain corn. We live in a marginal corn growing area as our summers are fairly cool. Painted Mountain is an OP corn that we are using as animal feed and for corn flour for us. It is a short season corn that we have had great success with. More info on this site: http://seedweneed.com/


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## ContinualHarvest (Feb 19, 2012)

My first year crowing corn too. Zone 7a. Silver Queen, just a few feet of it. I'll be harvesting soon as it got a bit of a late start.


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## Tank_Girl (Dec 26, 2011)

siletz said:


> We grow Painted Mountain corn. We live in a marginal corn growing area as our summers are fairly cool. Painted Mountain is an OP corn that we are using as animal feed and for corn flour for us. It is a short season corn that we have had great success with. More info on this site: http://seedweneed.com/


Oh WOW!

That corn is spectacular!
Possibly a silly question but what color would the flour be?
Are you going to lime it?


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## siletz (Aug 23, 2011)

Tank_Girl said:


> Oh WOW!
> 
> That corn is spectacular!
> Possibly a silly question but what color would the flour be?
> Are you going to lime it?


Unfortunately, the corn flour ends up a light grey color when you grind all those colors together.  But, it is very yummy, so we don't mind. It's a very hardy corn that gives us some self-sufficiency. We haven't tried liming it, we've just ground it as is. I've read that you can also use this corn for parching corn, but when we tried it, we didn't really like the finished product.


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## Jimmy24 (Apr 20, 2011)

I'm blessed with such a long growing season. It enables me to grow different types, without worry of cross pollination. I generally start with my sweet as early as I can get it in the ground. Silver Queen (about March 1) and then 3 weeks later Candy Corn, which is my favorite.

2nd week of April, starts just plain Pencil Cob. Plant it twice. It is also my most planted corn, as I use it for feed mainly.

The sweet corn only gets about 4-100' rows each. That is more than enough to freeze and can (creamed). I usually give a fairly large portion away to the nearby soup kitchen. 

The field corn gets 20 rows total and 2 years ago I was actually able to make a second planting of field corn in July. Though it did not do as well, it was worth the effort. That was the only year I had enough feed corn to carry me through the winter.

Love me some corn...:2thumb:

Jimmy


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