Popcorn

This is the very first year that we grew popcorn and it was an adventure.  We bought our seeds and planted 3 different types and according to package directions should be the best ever popcorn that we've ever tasted.  It also said to plant different varieties far enough apart so that they wouldn't cross-pollinate. with each other and with our sweet corn.  Well, we thought we did that as we had used 3 vacant alpaca pastures.  Maybe they were supposed to be like in the next county.

Well, first came the sweet corn.  We had 3 separate plantings of that to stagger the length of time that we could eat fresh corn....with that, we fought raccoons and those gardens are all inside a 5' 2" x 4" no-climb fence which should have kept critters out of the garden.  It didn't.

After the corn had tasseled, we began planting the popcorn so they wouldn't cross-pollinate.  Ha.  in the 3rd patch of sweet corn we had some colored kernels in the beautiful yellow corn.  Didn't change the taste of it, just made it prettier.

So now, the sweetcorn is done.  Here comes the popcorn.  Growing nice and tall.  I swear we had one overachiever that was most likely 8' or 9' tall.  It dwarfed me by about a mile it seemed.  Now that the ears are growing and tasseling out on the popcorn, here come the pesky birds.  They want to peck at the corn under the husks.  They were shredding them...which would mean they would be bug infested and not usable.  So, what to do.  Remember, corn is pretty tall which means anything we would hang would have to be about 2' taller to be effective...  The Farmer ordered some sort of metallic streamers that we could span across the rows if we had to.  He also ordered some popcorn bags which we did use.  Looked a little "popcorny" but it worked.  Below is a picture of one of our "picture perfect" popcorn patches.  Look how clean it looks.  Remember our rainy summer, created so many weeds that we fought them all summer long....so by the time I took this picture, I was joking that it looked like the farm on Green Acres without any weeds....remember that show.

Finally, the popcorn is ready to harvest and we did that this past Friday evening.  Date night at its finest.  

Harvesting corn brought back a flood of memories from my childhood.  When I was in high school my parents bought a 400 acre farm in Harrodsburg, Kentucky and we loaded up the car every Friday night and went to the farm, driving back each Sunday night.  Little did we know that they did this on purpose to keep us out of trouble....guess it worked, we turned out pretty good.  We have a lot of memories from our weekend farm experience and maybe I'll share some of those from time to time but this time it is about harvesting corn.....as that is what I was thinking about the whole time The Farmer and I were in our little corn patch, creating memories of our own.

I remember the farm well.  We grew tobacco, corn and hay.  Had some cows, pigs, chickens and ducks.  I remember frog gigging with my brothers, camping out, the outhouse, the well where we drew our water, the wood stove and fireplace and the heat vents in the floor that let the air rise from those heat sources to help heat the upstairs where we slept.  Good times.  My uncle lived at the farm full-time in a separate little shack with his wife so someone was there to take care of things on a daily basis.  In the fall when the corn was ready to pick, we would take a hay wagon with sides on it and all of us would go to the back and pick the corn.  Since it has been so many years (about 50) I honestly can not remember all the details.  I don't know if we shucked it in the field, or if it went into the corn crib with the shucks on it.  I am sure they probably sold some too but those are details that I don't remember.  I only remember the fun times that we all had growing up like that.  Times were simpler.

We've got the popcorn laying out in the sun to finish drying and then will remove it from the cob and put it into the freezer to preserve it for a little while and then it will get stored in mason jars awaiting those times we want to have some popcorn as a snack.  Home grown popcorn is the best.