Glass gem corn.

in #gardening6 years ago (edited)

Glass gem corn is the most beautiful breed of corn you can grow. It's a type of "Indian Corn" bred by Native Americans. The colors are truly amazing and they do look a bit like gemstones. It's mostly grown for ornamental purposes, but it is edible. The best part about this corn is that it is a type of popcorn. Making a small batch of popcorn is very easy. Take a ear or two of the dried corn and throw it in a paper bag in the microwave. The kernals are a bit smaller than traditional popcorn when you pop them. Like most things you grow at home the flavor is far superior to store bought popcorn. It has a very sweet taste to it and I prefer it without any butter or salt added. Corn is a relatively easy crop to grow even for a novice gardener. It likes fertile soil and some extra nitrogen fertilizer. Fish emulsion is a good organic source of nitrogen that I recommend. Worm castings "poo" is another exellent organic fertilizer that is packed with micro organisms and nutrients. I like to make an "actively aerated worm casting tea." I'll dedicate a blog on the process of making the tea next time I make a batch. You can also add the casting to the soil at planting time or use it as a top dressing. If you have never used it I highly suggest you give it a try. It's pretty expensive to buy the castings, so I have my own worm farm, that produces all I need. One thing that is important about growing this corn is timing it right. It takes 105 days to grow from seed to maturity. If you decide to grow other types of corn, make sure you plant the different varieties far enough away from each other, so they don't cross pollinate. For people like myself without much room, just make sure the breeds don't mature at the same time. I like to plant sweet corn about a month before my indian corns so they don't get cross pollinated. One year I had my sweet corn ruined by a crop of Indian Corn. It turned out very starchy and spotted with colors. They sure are worth the space and effort though. Even if you don't eat it they are good for decoration and display. Baker creek heirloom seeds is a good source for these seeds. They have some very interesting seed that you can't find anywhere else. https://www.rareseeds.com/glass-gem-corn-/ I like their "Rocky top" lettuce mix too. I hope everyone is having a pleasant day. Excuse my lack of post the last couple days, been fighting a stomach flu. Glad to be feeling almost human again lol. Anyways if you made it this far please upvote, follow, and resteem. I appreciate any and all of those things. https://www.mannabase.com/?ref=4683023c73

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This corn and White sweet corn are the only two you can get anymore that are not GMO. If you see silver queen you can faithfully purchase it knowing that Mansanto has not tinkerd with its genetics....yet. As I understand it is some what resistant to having its genes manipulated.

Going to have to get some of these seeds and plant it this spring. Ilove some good popcorn but have been hesitant to buy it in recent years simply becuase of the GMO factor.

Another great post found on @Jerrybanfield's discord #resteem-request channel. I think this is the second of your I found over here.

I'm glad you found my post. Strawberry corn is another type of popcorn breed that should be g.m.o. free. They grow very small plants and cobs. The plants are about 4 foot at maturity with 2-3 inch cobs that resemble strawberries. I'll have to check my stash and see if I have any more of those seeds.

Good to know. May want to share that information with @papa-pepper. Perhaps between all the homesteaders on STEEMit we could all get together and build a seed store. This way everyone could share the bounties each year with good seeds from other STEEMian gardening experiences.

That would be really fun and productive. I've been thinking about how to make a good benifit project to send extra seeds to less fortunate farmers. Places like India that have been affected my g.m.o.'s really bad.

Painted Mountain (short cool season flour corn), and Painted Hills (sweet, but not super sweet) corn are also nonGMO and are nutrient dense higher protein corns. Like @dirtyhippie said above, you want to pay attention to what is being grown nearby and planting times.

Great @dirtyhippie! Those are beautiful. I jave to ask, when the corn pops does it have any color or does it just pop as white pop corn?

It does not pop up like conventionally grown (often GMO) corn. It is not big and fluffy due to less starch content. But it tastes really good!

You're very welcome! I figured I better try it before I tell people to use it for pocorn because I had read that it wasn't the same as what people might expect! Lol!

nice post and i just wanna ask, why do some corns when sprouting out, they give different colors both on few grains and its hair strands or what is it called? lol......i'm going to resteem ASAP. Thanks

I'm honestly not sure exactly. You might be getting some stray pollin from a neighbors crop. It can pollinate up to 600 feet away. Thanks for resteeming.

I've seen photos online and always had the impression that these are fake, digitally created. Now I know I was wrong :) It's amazing though.

I can see how you could get that impression. It's legit though, at least the baker creek source I can vouch for.

I hope you are feeling better now 😊

Thank you. I'm feeling quite a bit better.

Glad to see someone else with interest in this variety of corn! I have recently written a blog about this same corn and showed how it pops for a contest! I look forward to seeing your future posts :) Also, I love Baker Creek for seeds!

Neat I followed you. I'll have to check out your blog on it. They have most amazing selection of seeds. The seed bank in Petaluma Ca. Is really neat.

I would love to see the seed bank they have... I've only visited via youtube videos! :) I like Bakercreek, Sowtrueseed, and highmowing so far. I have a permaculture project going on here so I'll be sharing a lot more here on #Steemit as time goes on! (They say not to post really involved blogs untill you get established on the platform, so I am saving some of the best stuff for the near future so it gets more views and the information I have learned will benefit more people!



I'm guessing a lot of people have been growing food longer than I have at this point, but that should make some of my stuff pretty amusing to the more experienced growers! =) I have grown quite a selection of unusual varieties of fruits and veggies. Plus last year I got almost 70 chickens and four crazy Guinea Fowl... so that is always an adventure! (No I can't eat them. Although I have a few of my 30 roosters I've thought real hard on...) Lol!


Thank you for following my blog too!


I grew up in Sonoma County so up until a few years ago I went to the seed bank pretty often. I used to work for "keep it green" landscaping as a gardener. The boss and I would run in on our lunch and grab a few interesting packs of seeds. The building was a bank originally and it still has the vault. I'll to have to check out the you-tube vid... I need to get some chicken's myself one day. Those roosters can be mean bastards. Probably wouldn't mind eating one of those every now and then. Lol

Oh wow, I would be crazy if I could go there and get seeds so easily! Lol! So you've clearly been growing things for quite a while, as I suspected! I like what they are doing with collecting and preserving so many varieties which is SO important right now with all of the GMO 'games' going on. Even though those games are actually pretty serious!


I wanted Guinea Hens because of the crazy rise in tics and Lymes here in the N.E. I could not garden without getting bitten. Never used to be so many! I think they are being released... and also the natural predators of tics are being reduced. So after I knew I needed Guinea Hens, I agreed to maybe a few chickens for eggs and so forth... SMH. I didn't want to support the industry just indesciminantly slaughtering tons of baby boy chicks and being mean to the females for eggs either... So Idecided I would keep the boys... but I got way more than I expected... and made a bachelor flock because a homesteader in sweden said it can be done. It can, and mostly it works... but some have fought with eachother and needed to be separated...


I got attacked by the one rooster I really wanted (seriously, I was shaking because I really didn't expect it, and used to laugh at people afraid of roosters!) so we had to have a we throw down a few times( I didn't hurt him), but he's still my baby :D =)! He's pretty good now. Most of our boys don't mess with us so far, but the real test I think will be the next month or two, because they are pretty riled up with spring weather coming on. cringe I actually really love the boys but we'll see what happens... Haha! I was traumatized by watching relatives kill chickens the old fashioned way when I was little, so I would prefer not to have to eat them...

I've been gardening most of my life. My mom had me breaking up dirt clods as a baby lol. My used to raise chickens and pigeons. The pigeons were really cool. Very mild mannered compared to those A-hole roosters lol. He had a couple mean ones...

oddly enough, I was told that a corn like this is diseased and we used to throw them away when ever we saw anyone like this. lol
We never stop learning and unlearning.

Glad to be of some help. I like your statement about learning and unlearning, it's so true.

Thank you and you are welcome!

@dirtyhippie, great article! You're not joking ... "Glass gem corn is the most beautiful breed of corn you can grow." I can see why you said that!

I am from the Caribbean and we grow corn there. I have never heard of or seen any corn so very beautiful!

Lovely photos! Thank you for the info! Upvoting!

Thanks so much, im glad you enjoyed seeing it. I'll have to see if I can find the seeds I have and plant some more this year.

Those are very weird looking! I thought it was an actual piece of glass til I finished reading!

I was pretty supprised when I grew them and they actually looked like the picture on the website. Pretty unreal looking.

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