Glass Gem corn, the iridescent flint corn that looks like little jewels on a cob is both ornamental and edible. You wouldn't want to eat it straight off the cob but it grinds into perfect cornmeal and used for popcorn.
I was at my neighbour's house the other day dropping off some chives from my garden for her when I said something that felt a little ridiculous. Not Westboro Baptist ridiculous, just normal ridiculous. You may know the fun loving Westboro Baptists from their hit single, "God Hates the World" or one of their catchy mottos, "The Only True Jews are Christians" and "1, 2, 3, 4, God Hates the Marine Corps". They also hate "fags", flags, Catholics, the Pope, Barrack Obama, Sweden, Apple (even though they use iPhones), Leonard Nimoy, pink buses, life, death, air, rainbows and anti-psychotic medications apparently.
What I said to my neighbour was "this is a very busy time of year for me with the harvest and all". The harvest and all. Firstly, when did I learn to speak yokel? And secondly ... the harvest? I have a 20x40 foot community garden and a patch of front yard and I'm referring to "the harvest".
But I'm telling you now, with Sweden as my witness, every spare second I have at the moment is taken up by picking vegetables, storing vegetables, canning or otherwise preserving vegetables. The harvest.
One of the things I happen to be harvesting is Glass Gem corn. Reader Kat mailed the seeds to me last year. I didn't really know what they were at the time which isn't surprising since Glass Gem corn was only unveiled to the world in 2012.
Glass Gem corn is a variety that almost didn't exist. You see, years ago a part-Cherokee farmer in Oklahoma was known for being a bit of a corn breeding genius. His name was Carl Barnes. Carl mixed and matched and bred different varieties of corn. He planted and created corn that produced translucent, gem-like kernels. He did this for years until he was satisfied he had created a variety of corn that would reliably reproduce what he had in his head. A corn that looked like it was made up of translucent glass gems. Glass Gem corn.
When Carl started to get on (there's that yokel talk about), he passed his seed collection onto his seed saving protege Greg Schoen. Greg was the one person that Carl trusted with his decades of work. In 2010, while in the process of moving and not wanting to lose track of the thousands of seeds, Greg took a small portion of his collection to a seed saving institution, Seeds Trust.
Curious about these seeds, in 2012 someone from Seeds Trust planted a handful of them in their garden to see what this Glass Gem corn would look like.
They were stunned to find corn with see through kernels in gemstone colours. And every single cob was different. The company posted photos of the corn on their Facebook page and within hours the corn pictures went viral, crashing their Facebook page. EVERYONE wanted to buy the seeds. The problem was, there weren't any for sale.
Over the next couple of years Seeds Trust worked to produce enough seeds to be able to sell to the public.
I have no idea how my reader got these seeds, but I'm hoping she'll let us all know in the comment section. I take my seed responsibility very seriously so I'll be getting a separate garden next year just for my glass gem corn. I'm hoping to grow 100 plants.
If YOU want to buy Glass Gem corn, there are many places that sell it on Amazon.com but if I were you I'd buy it from the original source Seed Trust. By buying from them you'll be guaranteed you're getting a properly bred and selected seed.
I know you're all excited about the possibility of eating this now, but Glass Gem isn't an eat off of the cob type of corn. It's a grind into flour type of corn; a flint corn. Before you get too disappointed, there are 2 other things you can do with this corn. Use it for fall decorating because it's SO much more impressive than the regular Indian corn you can buy. OR ... and this is the fun part ... you can use it for popcorn.
Coming up on Wednesday I'll be showing you 4 ways to decorate with Indian Corn using my Glass Gem corn because no matter what Pinterest tells you, tying 3 cobs of Indian corn together isn't as easy as it looks. For real. Once Autumn decorating season is over I'll be removing the best kernels for seed saving and the rest will get put into a glass jar for popcorn.
Because who doesn't like popcorn?! Then again. Who doesn't like rainbows?
Larissa Stretton
Karen,
Your corn is beautiful! My friend grew this to decorate for her son's wedding. She had some left with some pink kernals, since pink is my all-time favorite color of all time,, she gave me several ears. I happily tucked them into my window box among the gourds and mums. Stepped back, admired them, then went into the house to do some chores. Not 5 minutes later, I heard something outside the windows, yep, the darn squirrels stole every ear!
I hope your beautiful corn doesn't suffer the same fate!
Laura Bee
Dang varmints!
Jennifer
This isn't a corn comment, although that really is gorgeous corn. No, this is a tomato seed comment. For the first time, I'm trying fermenting two different kinds of heirloom tomato seeds according to your instructions on an old post. Also, a question: have you ever had a tomato seedling sprout from compost? My guess is that the compost process does the same thing in dirt that letting seeds mold in water does. My tomato sprout is now a huge plant, right in the middle of a dahlia patch! It started at the wrong time of year, just now blooming, and even here in central California I'm sure I won't get anything but blossoms, but it's been fun to watch. Don't know if this makes sense, but this tomato-from-compost convinced me to try the aforementioned seed saving. Wish me luck!
Barbie
Just showed these pics of your corn to my 92 yr old uncle (who usually is our garden guy) .... He is in hospital at the moment and he just lit up with a huge smile when I showed him your corn ..... Thanks for brightening our day! That is the most beautiful corn!!!! I may try some of those seeds next year.
Karen
Well that made my day Barbie. I'm glad my corn could make him smile. :) ~ karen!!
Nancy Blue Moon
So pretty Karen..I immediately thought of dying it and making it into a necklace..bracelet and earrings so you can tell that I make jewelry...It would be so gorgeous...old Carl was a smart man...I also hope that Greg got some money for the corn that they stole from him..As for the Westboro Assheads..they came here a few years ago...to a little old country town down the road..the people there that day were burying a young soldier who was killed in action..his family was devastated by his death..but very proud of who their boy was and the sacrifice he made..The country folk came from miles around to block the roads and any passageway that the so called protesters might get through to the funeral proceedings at that little old country church with the cemetery in back..It was a beautiful thing to see them pack up and head for home..they weren't going to get the attention the sought that day..Love and honor was standing in their way...Sorry I rambled on..I can't hear any mention of those idiots without thinking of that day..Now it is just one of those memories that stay with you for a lifetime..
Nancy Blue Moon
I meant drying it..not dying it..it certainly doesn't need that..lol..
Karen
Good for those town people! Ridiculous nutjobs wandering around making asses of themselves protesting funerals of soldiers. Asses. ~ karen!
Nancy Blue Moon
I can't think of a more hurtful thing to do to these soldiers families..I don't think we will be seeing them around here again...
Jennie Lee
Here's another idea for your glass gem corn! When I was a kid, I once used colored popcorn to make a mosaic. I just drew a design on cardboard, and then used Elmer's glue to glue the particular color of corn I wanted into each section of the design. Your corn comes in so many colors that I'm sure someone could make a beautiful mosaic!
Mary Kay
I want to see the popcorn!!! I wish I had an area big enough to grow some of this...maybe it is time to petition the township for a community garden!
Liz
A-Maize- ing :)
Karin
clever :0B
kelli
I'm not sure I could eat that (in any fashion), it's too beautiful! Although I bet it makes popcorn even funner than it already is!
Sarah @ onesuchlife
Gorgeous! They look like glass beads. And wait, the kernels can be used for popcorn?!
Karen
Yesum. ~ karen!
Jody
That's beautiful corn. A couple of questions from this City Folk. On a corn stalk how many cobs of corn are on it? One or multiple? Secondly, if this is ground into flour what colour is the flour?
Karen
Hi Jody! The corn will just grind into regular looking flour. And you get 1-3 cobs per corn. Normally only one though believe it or not. ~ karen!
Patty
Awww. I'm very jealous of your corn. I planted some this year and it never made it. We had a very rainy June so it was planted later then I would have liked. Only a few stalks ended up growing and they only made it waist high. You could see the pretty colors the cobs had started developing. Oh well, there is always next year.
Karen
"Oh well, there is always next year" LOL, the mantra of every gardener in the world. ~ karen!
Barb
This corn is beyond beautiful, if that can be said about a vegetable. Thanks so much for sharing, Karen!
Tigersmom
Ok, I scrolled back up to admire the photos again and I have to compliment you for color coordinating your green pants to the green in the corn kernels. I know that was no accident.
And who is the maker of your awesome gold (but not over the top GOLD!!!) flats?
Karen
Thanks Tigersmom. Hmm. I actually can't remember. I have a couple pairs of gold flats. I think those ones are from Joe Fresh. ~ karen!
Tigersmom
So pretty!!!!
Erin
"Harvest and all" is right. I'm up to my eyeballs in tomatoes and peppers (which is a good thing) but we're getting work done on the house, and when the guys come I'm sure they think I'm slacking off. But the tomatoes on the counter are different ones every couple of days. I'm roasting as fast as I can. Let's not even mention the kale!
Beautiful corn variety- thanks for sharing the story.
Madeleine Whitfield
I'd love to grow corn again, but every time I plant it, I suddenly find hitherto unseen raccoons in my garden and stripped corn and half-eaten cobs all over. How do you prevent this happening to you?
Karen
Hi Madeleine. I was sure that was going to happen to me too this year but it seems our community garden fencing is finally keeping most of the raccoons out. I also put 8' stakes all around my corn patch and enclosed it by stapling a loose netting on. Loose enough that the raccoons couldn't climb on it. A lot of other people make makeshift electric fences (either battery operated or solar powered) around their corn to keep the raccoons out and it seems to work really well. You can get the stuff you need from any TSC store. ~ karen!
Jossephine
Madeleine I feel for you. I had the same problem, by the time my crop of corn was ready there was none left. I haven't planted corn in a few years and I was missing our own corn so I planted orchard corn this year to try it out and we placed a metal trap with marshmallows in it and we caught 6 raccoons which we released way.....way down another road. Word of advise raccoon's love sweet things, skunks don't, just so you don't get a nasty surprise one morning.
There is nothing like growing your own corn. My favorite for eating is White Corn.
However the glass corn sounds sooo cool. For us Canadians some of us use companies over the border that we send our parcels to and save on shipping. Though they do charge $5.00 a parcel. Now with the exchange rate so high? Something to figure out.
Karin
very beautiful corn, perhaps next year i shall give it a try. but... what about Greg? someone just took the seeds and is now selling them? i just hope Greg is part of the payout in some way. otherwise t'wouldn't be right.
Julie
Karin, I was kinda worried about Greg too! I hope he gets something for his trouble!
Karin
per the interwebs it's all good, if the interwebs could be trusted ;0B
Sarah
Wow! I have to get my hands on some of those seeds!
Melissa in NC
Beautiful!
Mary W
WOW, I will certainly grow that corn in my 3 x 10 flower border and forget the flowers. Amazing to look at and I eat air popped popcorn almost every day. How many people can eat their displays instead of storing them for next year - Karen you are a genius. I will be getting some ASAP.
Mary W
Seeds ordered through Seed Trust. My next question is - never had to help corn pollinate but will need to as I only have a tiny plot. Any suggestions?
Karen
I just shook the stalks a tiny bit when they flowers were on top and the silks on the cobs were showing, that's all. ~ karen!