03/07/2026
So many people have commented and asked about the corn growing in our little verge garden on Killcare Rd. We have just harvested it and it’s breathtakingly beautiful so I thought I would share it with you.
A lovely friend passed on these Hopi Corn (also called Glass Gem Corn) last year so we planted some in the sunniest spot we could find, out on the street in our verge garden.
According to Hopi creation stories, the Creator gave humans a choice of corn. The humble Hopi chose the smallest ear, gaining a deep bond with the earth.
When I saw how beautiful these ears are and all the colour captured I feel more connected to the earth too.
I will dry and save the seeds of this Hopi Corn, plant more later this year and will have some to share if anyone would like to give it a go. It is not a corn you eat fresh, it could be ground for corn meal to make tortillas etc, and I have seen it used to make popcorn, will give that a shot once it’s dry enough. But actually just the thrill of growing something so beautiful is enough!
A few tips for growing corn,
- it likes plenty of moisture,
- soil improved with compost,
- pollination is more reliable when it is planted in blocks rather than rows.
- You can help pollination by giving the plants a shake when the silks are out, the pollen is released from the flowers at the tippy top of the plant and blows around in the wind to land on the silks.
- Each strand of silk represents one kernel in the cob and every silk needs pollen for the kernels to be pollinated, so cool!
So you can see from some of the cobs pollination was pretty good, and others not so good, this was because they were planted too far away from the block and missed out on the pollen.
Let me know if you’d like to give it a try?
