OUR 2ND ANNUAL POPCORN HARVEST

For the second year in a row, we have been able to harvest our own popcorn!

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Even with my lame excuse for a garden this year, we are blessed. One of the very few things that I actually got planted in the spring was popcorn. After the excellent time that we had growing our own popcorn last year, I did not want to miss out on making that memory again with my family.

If you are interested in checking out our harvest from last year, CLICK HERE once you finish with this post.

MEET THE HARVESTERS

Always ready to enjoy and experience (even if some would call it work) the @little-peppers got off to a great start this morning. We had been meaning to harvest our popcorn for days now and finally got to do it.

Red-Pepper, Monster Truck the Pepper, and Sweet-Pepper all got started right away and Pinky-Pepper joined us shortly after we got started. It is more of a process than you may think, but "a family that works together gets a lot more done."

THE BLESSING OF DOING IT YOURSELF

Trust us, there is a HUGE difference between the amount of appreciation that goes into enjoying this popcorn verses the stuff in the packet that goes into the microwave. I loved to see how this harvest got started too.

Each of the first three children picked their own ears, and then opened them. Amazingly, they got three different cobs. I normally plant three varieties, which include “Indian Berries” and “Strawberry Popcorn.” This job is simple enough for a two year old to help with, and now she too can enjoy the fruit (or popcorn) of her hard work.

These @little-peppers helped plant this corn and now they are able to help harvest it. Next year we should have even more as we prepare our own land to grow on. Check out the expression on Sweet-Pepper's face as she examines this ear of popcorn.

They certainly come in a wide range of colors, shapes, and sizes even with the few varieties that we are growing. This first phase of the process in the most fun and it is full of wonder and surprises as ear after ear is unwrapped to see what is growing inside. It is a marvel for me as well, so I can only imagine what it must be like for these children. I think that I would have loved this tradition as a child - no offense @grandpa-pepper - but at least these @little-peppers can enjoy it.

PHASE TWO

We knew that we should have harvested and dried these a bit ago, but life gets busy and random. Thankfully we still got to them in time to get a harvest, and the bugs and moisture did not affect them too badly. For the most part though, the beauty of dried ears would have been gone for reasons like this.

It was my job to remove the "bad" seeds from the cob and then hand the rest over to the @little-peppers. Any areas that were nibbled on by bugs or slightly moldy had to be removed. These kernels are not just garbage though. They can be used as feed for the chickens or hogs, added to a compost pile, or we can still plant them. We chose to spread them around down on the land to see if we still had enough time for a second harvest. It is unlikely, but we have nothing to risk.

With cool-colored and pretty cobs to shuck, the @little-peppers started off great. It did take a while, but at least we can apply some group effort.

Not all of these seeds that we harvested will be popped. Not only are we providing some of our own food, we are proving some of our own seeds for the next year too. Just like these popcorn were grown from seeds that we saved last year, so some of the seeds that we harvested this year will be planted next year, and the process will continue. Personally, I would like to keep this tradition going and this process repeating until my children's children can come gather their own yearly supply of popcorn from my garden, maybe longer.

THE FINISHED PRODUCT

The rewards of the finished job are many. We have a few pounds of beautiful kernels to pop and plant. We also got to enjoy some time together. We saved money on both food and garden seeds, and we had the amazing experience of peeking inside each of the husks to see what was inside, which had been a mystery to us all summer. Currently we have these seeds spread out to completely dry. Once they are dried, they can be stored until we pop or plant them.

I know that we have sent some of these very same seeds to @ballinconscious, @mattewtiii and others, so I wonder how many of them will get to enjoy this same experience, or even start this same tradition. Time will tell.

As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:

proof-of-popcorn-harvest

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Until next time…

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