Market Farming

["Marlin Burkholder" <glenecofarm AT planetcomm.net>]

This week I started harvesting some of the open pollinated sweet corn I
planted this spring after reading up on some of it's merits in the E&R Seeds
catalog.  This is turning out to be an interesting experience!

I planted two varieties, Golden Bantham (yellow) and Stowells Evergreen
(white) and later maturing.  My first impression was the long and slow
pollination period with ears silking at varoius times meaning I may be
harvesting over a time window of several weeks rather than several days.
The other was the size of the ears.  Much of this stuff looks more like
field corn with it's long slender ears (10-12" long) born on long shanks.
Most stalks have two or more ears forming.  I saw one with what looks like
four harvestable ears forming.  Many of the shanks appear to be as long as
the ear itself and gives the stalk the funny appearance of a branching
plant.

I expected this corn to taste like wood as the ears shucked out with an
appearance more like that of the ears of immature field corn.  I was
pleasantly surprised  with the first ears I tasted.  No it doesn't have the
sweet tender taste of the Bodaceous and Incredible sugar enhanced hybreds
I've been accustomed to, but it sure isn't bad.  I would just call it a
solid corn taste.  I told myself, "this is the experience of eating 'roastun
ears' of 75 years ago".

I ran out of time to spray all of my sweet corn for earworms and since it
was harder to decide the right time in the silking stage to put on the spray
on the OP corn, it didn't get sprayed.  Interesting enough, the worms are no
worse on the unsprayed OP corn than on the hybred corn that did get sprayed.

So what am I thinking now?  For the guy who wants to be able to run out and
quickly pull a pickup load or two, run it to his market, then bushhog the
patch a week later for the next crop, hybred corn is probably still his
better choice.  However for someone wanting to go out and pull a few ears at
a time every couple of days and have a steady supply all summer then OP corn
may very well have something going for him.

I've beenj watching this stuff grow with a bit of trepidation.  Now I'm
planning to sell a little bit tomorrow at my market to test out people's
reactions and I just might play with it a little again next year.

Marlin Burkholder
Shenandoah Valley Virginia

PS.  I've been quite enamored with Zephyr summer squash.  I pick most of it
around 6-8' long and sell it for $1.50 per pound.  Now I'm wondering if I
should be picking it at 3-4" long and selling it for say $5.00 per pound.
Looks like this should go over good with 5 star restaurant chefs.  I wonder
what some of the rest of you are doing.