G'day to all! A Chamber of Commerce day here in central Georgia. Been out in the workshop building a table for a farmer friend of mine and starting to get in the short rows with it. The same table on the internet sells for $549 with shipping. Just a token of appreciation for all the help that my life long friends do for me and my family. I am chomping at the bit to get started planting. Corn will probably be the first thing I plant as it can handle a frost and keep on ticking. Yall mentioned earlier about planting cowpeas in the corn. I tried it, but didn't care for it as corn loves nitrogen and peas don't need much of it or you get a lot of vines and not many peas. Plus, my favorite cowpea is Red Rippers and they make a heck of a bush with runners. It gets too 'snakey' to harvest either of them! I live near Eastman, Georgia (Home of Stuckey's candies) and buy my seed at a local home garden center (Chas Mar) as they have a good selection and are reasonably priced compared to ordering from the internet. Soon I will be taking my wife down there to choose the peas and beans she wants me to plant this season. My wife was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida, but loves the country. It does my heart good to see her so pleased at looking at the different kinds and making choices. Getting all sloppy now... lol Mr. Brown, I have a friend that lives in Avon Park, Florida (below Orlando) that loves gardening too and wonder if your 'winter home' is near there? George, we should keep quiet about the country life... hee hee We might not be in the country long if the word gets out... Shot

I grew oodles of corns in 2008 and 2009, and actually just ground it all up in October and November -- it sat in the basement in storage for all that time. I ended up with over a hundred pounds of corn meal, of various colors. I tried flour corns (actually, my favorite in terms of ease of grinding), dent corns (most productive), flint corns (not for grinding again, too hard! but pretty for decorative use), and even waxy corn (via someone in North Carolina who got seeds from China). I think my single most productive variety was Northstine Dent --- its a northern Michigan heirloom with fairly short plants (5-6 feet), and about 7 inch ears with yellow kernels. Hopi Blue Dent was probably the most productive blue. Earthtones Dent and Oaxacan Green were both productive, but the cornmeal is kind of ugly, yielding a strangely colored cornbread (kind of looks like dryer lint, but tastes fine). Painted Mountain was just OK in terms of production, IMO. Alas, my dry corn crop this year was an abject failure. The stupid squirrels striped every ear of my dry corns, from several hundred feet of row. There was NO walnut or acorn crop here, and I guess they were desperate for food, but partially my fault because I got lazy and was NOT good about getting them trapped, I just had too many other things to do. It did serve one purpose, they stayed out of my sweet corn and went for the dry corn varieties in the other garden closer to the trees. Hopefully next year will be better.

Your info on variegated Japanese corn (popcorn?) sounds promising. It makes me believe that you are isolating them far enough apart to be effective, but practical. I like the idea of the ears being multicolored much more than being dark burgundy. My genetic knowledge is more animal based than plant based. However, a few generalizations apply. Choosing from the best ears for your purposes is right on track, but I would choose kernels from the best 20 ears instead of three. However, if there were seven ears I rated highly, followed by 13 I rated mediocre, I would choose only from the best seven. My question arose because I thought you may have made the same error I once made. I had a race of ornamental corn that had lots of colors. Every ear you husked made you smile. I liked the colors, but thought the yellows and especially the whites added nothing to the beauty. I planted only the colors I liked and zero yellows and whites. My yield still had plenty of yellows/whites and I kept selecting against them. This was decades ago so I don't remember exactly. But about the fourth year I was opening husks to find very dark ears that would have looked nice in certain arrangements, but none really made you smile. I discontinued the project completely. My lesson was to not place emphasis on individual kernels, but to rate the grains/silk/stalk/husk/tassels/leaves/cob/root system as a whole.

Okiefamily, I don't think we know enough about the corn to know why it seemed too chewy. For what it is worth, ears of corn look like small ears of corn even before they are pollinated so just because the ears looked like small ears of corn does not mean they were ready to eat. Often, when corn is too chewy it is because it was left on the plant too long after pollination occurred and the kernels have become tough and doughy, and will be very chewy when eaten. However, if you pick the corn too early and before it has reached the milk stage, it can be too chewy too. And, if you microwaved it too long, it can be too chewy. And, some varieties are chewier than others. So, let's see if we can figure out which one of those it is with your corn HOW TO KNOW IF CORN IS READY TO PICK: The easiest way is to wait until after the cornsilks have dried and turned brown. To test the corn for ripeness, peel back just the end of part of the husk and press your fingernail against a kernel until fluid comes out. IF IT IS JUST RIGHT AND READY TO PICK: The skin of the kernel should be crisp and, when punctured, a milky-colored sap should come out. That is the "milk" stage and it is your clue that the corn is ready to pick, Most corn is at the milk stage only about 5 days. IF IT IS NOT RIPE YET: If a clear sap comes out, the corn is not ripe enough. Replace the husk around the corn the best you can and wait a few days (more about the timing below) before you check again. IF IT IS TOO RIPE: If no sap comes out and the kernels are filled out and look like normal kernels, you've waited too long and the corn is overripe. At this point it is likely to be doughy and tough. IF THE CORN SILKS ARE STILL GREEN: If you were to peel back a husk and look at your corn while the silks are still green, you'd see kernels that look "underinflated" because they haven't matured yet. Corn at this stage would be tough because it is still unripe and if you press on the undernflated-lookng kernels, no sap at all comes out because the corn is very immature. PARTIALLY FILLED EARS: If some kernels look normal, plump, and are at the milk stage but others are flat and look uninflated, you had pollination issues. HARVESTING BY THE CALENDAR: Another way you can "estimate" if the corn is ready to harvest is to mark your calendar when the green corn silks emerge from the ends of the ears. Normally, this happens over the course of a few days, so you might note on your calendar "corn silks began appearing today" and then, a few days later, when all the ears have their silks, mark that on your calendar too. Under normal conditions, pollination will occur after the cornsilks appear and you'll have "ripe" ears in the milk stage I described above in about 18-24 days after the silks first appear. The DTM is a little different for each variety, but also is dependent on weather conditions and growing conditions. Once you harvest corn, it is best to use it quickly while its quality is highest. I like to put the pot of water on the stove before I run out to the garden to cut the ears. Then I bring them in, husk them and drop them into the water to cook. Even if I am doing the main harvest and putting up a couple of hundred ears in the freezer (or cutting corn from the cobs to freeze that way), I like to process all of it as soon as it is picked. In the "old days", or if you still grow old-fashioned, real, heirloom corn that has not been bred with sugary-enhanced, supersweet or tripe sweet characteristics, it was/is very important to eat or freeze the corn quickly because the sugar converts to starch (affecting flavor and texture) very quickly. With the newer hybrid corns bred for extra sweetness, you have a little more leeway. Also, different varieties of corn give different results. Do you remember the variety you planted? Overcooking can may corn tough too. When you cook your corn in boiling water on the stove, you want to cook it only 3-4 minutes. Beyond that, it can start to get tough. I generally don't microwave corn, and how long it would take would vary depending on the wattage of your microwave and the size of the ears of corn. Regular sized ears (those about 7-9" long) probably would take 2-3 minutes per ear. You can help keep it crisp by microwaving it in the husk, or by wrapping each ear in plastic wrap before microwaving which essentially steams the corn. Finally, another clue is your seed packet. On the back of the packet, there should have been a number that told you how long (approximately) it takes the corn to go from seed to maturity. Often, this is expressed as "Days To Maturity" or "DTM". Although these numbers are not necessarily precise, they are close. Corn grown in "perfect" conditions will mature at about the same DTM given on the package, while corn grown in fairly cool weather can be a little slower as can corn grown in drought conditions. Hope this info helps. If you have more questions, ask them, and we can discuss it further. Dawn