Heirloom

For the past few years I’ve been growing a open-pollinated white corn in our garden. I got the seeds from Sam Taulbee, who called it hillbilly corn. It sounds fancier though to refer to it as a ‘heirloom variety.’

Despite the drought conditions we had this year, the hillbilly corn did very well.

This corn grows tall, 12 to 14 feet, and it puts on its ears over my head (and way above Owen’s head.)

It has a long narrow ear.

That ear is 8 kernels around and 50 kernels long. Ordinary field corn is 14 or 16 kernels around and 35 to 40 long. And each kernel is huge.

I don’t do much with this corn. I grind some for corn meal and save some to plant again next year. I just like having it growing in my garden as something pretty to look at.