POPCORN!

Last year I grew Strawberry Red Popcorn. I grew it in the polytunnel, so that it wouldn't cross with my supersweet corn outside. It went rampant in there, but come autumn the field mice abandoned the surrounding crops and moved in. Only the lucky few cobs survived the onslaught.

 

But they were very good looking.

 

There was, however, one very BIG disappointment.
They didn't pop! I tried everything - Microwave, saucepan, whole, kernels stripped from the cob, oil, butter.... But not a pop.
I wrote a blog post. Something about Poppycock, I seem to recall.
In fact, it's here if you want to look.

Fast forward six months and April's gathering of the Fenland Smallholders Veg Group. I had asked people to talk about one unusual veg they had grown and I was trying to decide what I would talk about when I remembered the popcorn kernels which we had kept in brown paper bags in the kitchen.

I popped one in the microwave, literally... it POPPED! Not perfectly, but it most definitely popped.

After some experimentation, I found that the kernels were now easy to strip from the cob and the best way to pop them was in a hot saucepan with a little oil.

 

It went down very well at the Veg Group, especially the one tossed in our very own honey which Sue collected just a couple of days before.

 

So, having almost given up on this novelty crop, it had suddenly turned into a success story. I checked back on the website from which I purchased it and it was not a F1 hybrid. So I stripped the kernels off a cob and set them to chit. This is a method I have adopted for germinating sweetcorn, since I can't reliably sow it direct in the ground (mice and voles) and it has a tendency to just rot when sown in modules - probably my fault, but a common problem.

Normal sweetcorn set to chit.
I sandwich the kernels between sheets of damp
kitchen roll, cover with a propagator lid and place
 in the warmth of the polytunnel to sprout.
I then drop them into modules to grow,
as it's too early for them to go outside yet and they need
a long enough growing season to ripen properly.

After a couple of days just about every seed had sprouted.
The long white sprout is actually the root.
You can just see the green stem started to grow on some of these.

I reckon that each small cob must have about 300 kernels on. That's about £7 worth of seed. If only I could sell them all for that.

Strawberry Popcorn - A load of poppycock??

What's inside?

If you remember, earlier this year I planted some sweetcorn plants in the polytunnel. The result was that they grew, and grew, and grew, until they reached the sky. Well, the roof of the polytunnel anyway.
The reason I was growing this sweetdorn in the polytunnel was that I didn't want it cross-pollinating with my supersweet F1 variety which I grow outdoors.

 

This particularly corn crop was grown for an entirely different purpose - to make us self-sufficient in popcorn! Yes, that's right. Popcorn!
Not only that, but it looks very pretty when harvested too.

Well, how's your maths?
Take 200 seeds. Lose half through non-germination - too cold early in the year. Lose another third which just don't take very well. A quarter fall victim to climbing mice, which have come in after the fields were harvested and eaten the cobs before they had a chance to dry on the plant. About 15% of those saved and placed safely to dry on the crop bars of the polytunnel, also get munched by mice which scale the tomato plants to reach them. (Luckily I noticed a little pile of husks on the floor before it was too late).

The mice got to this one first.

How are you doing so far? I'm down to about 43.  But each plant had a couple of cobs or more, so I was still quite excited when I went to peel back the papery coverings today.

The first couple looked very good indeed. Like giant raspberries, each kernel a delicious deep red colour.

But the maths goes on.
For many of them don't seem to have developed. I guess that they didn't get pollinated properly.


















In the end, my total harvest amounted to this...

Still, it looks pretty, doesn't take up too much polytunnel space, and I can only do better next year, can't I! Lessons have been learned.

Despite, or inspite of, the trail of losses, I just couldn't wait to try one though.

I checked back to the website where I purchased them from and, as I thought, it said to simply pop the whole cob into the microwave to enjoy gorgeous, fluffy popcorn with a hint of a strawberry flavour.
Being one to think ahead, I had this vision of a microwave splattered with popcorn shooting everywhere, so I placed one small cob into a plastic bowl and put a plate on top to keep it from escaping. It was only 30 seconds before I could hear that tell-tale popping sound and the smell of popcorn started to waft into the air. I had a peek and, although some kernels had split, there was no explosive fluffing up yet. So I put the lot back in, this time risking taking the lid off. I left it a while, but the microwave filled with smoke and the smell wafting through the air was now one of a distinct burning nature.

But the cob just looked like this...

All I can think is that the cobs need more time to dry out.

But, to be honest, how much more can a man take?

Not every crop has to be totally functional. I value beauty in the veg garden too and a couple of novelty crops each year never go amiss. Sometimes they give a very pleasant surprise, but often I discover just why they've not entered the mainstream of growing  in the UK yet.


I'll try microwaving another cob in a couple of weeks, but it'll have to do something pretty spectacular to earn its place on next year's growing list.

At least I have some interesting table decorations for Christmas though.

Three Sisters resurrected

Last year I attempted to cultivate The Three Sisters.

That's the system where you grow sweetcorn in small clumps, interspersed with squashes and pumpkins. Then you add the third "sister" - climbing beans, whose sole purpose is to feed the slugs and divert them away from the other crops... or so it seemed.

Well, that was last year.
As it was, the sweetcorn, squashes, courgettes and pumpkins did very well given copious amounts of rain.

This year is a very different year. So last week the three sisters were resurrected.

The sweetcorn is growing well now.
Time to sow the French beans.

I doubt the original growers of Three Sisters
surrounded their crops with electric fence
to protect it against rabbits.

Young sweetcorn plants, back on 27th May


The sweetcorn has been planted for well over a fortnight now. It always takes a knock back when it first goes into the ground outside and the weakest specimens don't make it.
After a tricky germination, where several complete trays just rotted away as they failed to spring into life in the cool conditions, I didn't really have any to spare. As it is a high proportion of plants have made it through and have begun to grow more strongly.

Various types of courgette, squash and pumpkin have now been transplanted out between them.

I decided to invest time erecting the electric rabbit fence around my lovingly nurtured plants. There is nothing as soul-destroying as the disappointment of finding your freshly planted crops nibbled or, worse still, uprooted and laying wilted on the surface of the soil.

And so to the third sister. While the cucurbits spread and shade the surface of the soil, the beans climb up the sweetcorn stalks, in the process capturing nitrogen and enriching the soil for next year.
I had some beans already sown, but they are about three times as tall as the corn and reaching rapidly for the skies. So I decided instead to sow fresh beans at the bases of the sweetcorn. I have plumped for French bean Blue Lake, a stringless variety which has performed well in our soil in the past.

And in honour of the Native American origins of the Three Sisters planting system, I have planted some wigwams of runner beans alongside!

But in all seriousness there are some very valid reasons for growing these crops in combination. Get the timing right and the plants aid each others' growth. They provide a good nutritional balance too.
There's some good information on this website:

http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html

One very useful hint I picked up from this site, so indirectly from the Native American Indians, is to use nature to time sowing and planting.
For early spring in the books is different across the whole country and from year to year. If you sowed seeds strictly by date this year, as I found out to my cost with the sweetcorn, they just sat in the cold conditions not realising it was time to sprout into life.
But if you sowed when, for instance, the cow parsley came into flower or the sowthistles started to grow, then nature would be your calendar...

Not that nature always gets it right.

Sweet, sweet sweetcorn

Sue will thank me for publishing this photo!

Well, the liver was lovely last night - always a treat when a piglet comes back all bagged up from the butchers. But it was not the star of the show.

Friday 14th September 2012

For this morning Sue harvested some of the sweetcorn which has been growing in amongst the pumpkins. I've only grown sweetcorn once before, but I did everything too late and ended up not harvesting it. However, this time I was prepared. I waited till the time was right before planting my Sweetcorn Lark seeds (an Xtra tender type from Vegetableseeds.net) in modules in the greenhouse. I had 98% germination and they grew quickly and were ready to go out just as the soil had sufficiently warmed up. Maybe the early water helped them - I don't know, but they settled in quickly outside and were soon putting on new growth.

I had planted them in groups of four, spaced at the corners of a 9 inch square. In between the planting stations were squashes, courgettes and pumpkins, and at the base of each corn plant a climbing bean seed was planted.

At the risk of repetition, the beans completely failed, torn to shreds by slugs, and a second sowing of plants raised in the glasshouse came to the same fate. But the little sweetcorn plants escaped the slugs and continued to grow, their bases gradually given shade by the encroaching pumpkin and courgette plants with their giant leaves. Their feathery heads towered above all this and, in the crooks of their elbows, the cobs began to swell.

Patiently I waited, oh so patiently, even leaving them past the point when Don next door had harvested his. I decided that every little drop of this late summer sunshine was going to go into my corn. 

 

So when Sue bought in a basket full of cobs it was a tense moment as she peeld back the outer sheathers of leaves. Would they reveal a grid of unswollen, pale seeds or a honeycomb of sweet, golden nougats?

 

To my amazement and great pride, the latter! Only two had failed to ripen sufficiently and one had proved a temptation for the mice - a good reason to collect in our harvest and process it for the freezer. All we do is peel of all the outer leaves then parboil the whole cobs before putting them in the freezer.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. I have had home-grown sweetcorn before which has been average to disappointing, but not this time. The sweetcorn was deliciously juicy and sweet, outshining the rest of the meal. Replacement seeds are already on my shopping list for next year. At £1.25 for 25 seeds that works out at about 3 to 4p per cob, of course, not including my labour.

Two Sisters

Three Sisters, Sweetcorn, Climbing Peas and Cucurbits















This was my Three Sisters patch just over two weeks ago. The sweetcorn was beginning to do well and the various squashes, pumpkins and courgettes were just beginning to flower and burst into growth. The pea beans, though, had twice floundered under attack by slugs. I'd raised some in the greenhouse though and these were looking healthy enough to go outside. Three Sisters restored.














The cucurbits planted in tyres were mostly beginning to thrive too. This system of planting means I can pack all the nutrients in around the roots. It is most beneficial in a warmer and drier year, when the tyres heat up the soil and help retain water.

Thursday 2nd August 2012



So, fast forward to early August and here's my Three Sisters patch.



The sweetcorn is doing well. I had my reservations about planting it in blocks of four, but decided to follow the planting guidelines to the letter. The flower tassels are waving about in the air and the cobs are beginning to swell.



Underneath, the cucurbits are really beginning to ramble now and most have fruits forming.

As for the pea beans ... well, the third Sister has again failed to make it past the slugs. Maybe one or two might survive to clamber up the corn stems if I'm lucky. On the positive side, I think this system will work well for me. This is just an exceptionally challenging year for all the beans.

 

The first courgette.
This is Grisette de Provence.
It grew rather fat and I thought
it might go pulpy inside,
but no, it was lovely and firm.
I griddled half with burgers and chips.
The other half held up very well
in a chicken and potato curry.

The squashes, pumpkins and courgettes grown on the ground in the Three Sisters system seem to have faired about the same as their cousins grown in tyres. I'll give them all a feed of comfrey juice now they've set some fruits.

We've started harvesting courgettes and the patty pans aren't far behind. A welcome glut will soon be upon us!

I'm growing pumpkins for the first time this year, Jack Be Little and Hundredweight. I don't just use them at halloween. They are great in soups, curries and in cakes and muffins. So versatile.

And with the winter squashes too we'll be well fed from our stores in the colder months.