Most corn grown today is standardized, transgenic feed corn. Most of the rest is hybridized sweet corn. If all we’re concerned about is calories/acre and marketability, that’s fine. For the hobby gardener, there are some varieties of hybridized sweet corn that taste much better than what you can get at the super market. For the more experimental and organic-minded gardener, there is a largely overlooked host of heirloom corn varieties, specifically tailored to your climate (whatever it is) that, unlike hybrized sweet corn, can give support to companion crops such as pole beans and which are unlike any corn you can get from the super market.
My task last season was to find one variety of corn that would grow well in containers on my Cambridge roof top and one multi-purpose (good fresh or ground to flour) variety that would thrive in a Three Sisters Garden at the Cambridge Community Center (for maximum educational benefit).
After much research, I settled on Rainbow Inca for the Community Center and Baby Blue Jade corn for my roof garden.
The blue corn grew beautifully on my deck and produced about five 5″ long ears per plant. I planted six plants in each of two 20 gallon rubbermade bin. Because each kernel of corn must be individually pollinated, it’s important to grow several rows of corn fairly close together.
The plants grew about five feet high. I harvested the ears when the silk turned brown and left several ears on the stalk to save for next year’s seeds. The advantage of open-pollinated, heirloom corn over the more common hybrid corn is that seeds can be saved to grow next year’s crop. The disadvantage is the taste. Unfortunately, the corn was tough, chewy and not very sweet, and somewhat bland in flavor. Many ears were insufficiently pollinated and had only a few kernels. While I would like to repeat the experiment, I do not think growing corn in containers is a practical use of energy and space.
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