A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Has anyone ever.......CORN

On Saturday my husband asked me if the corn kernals from my popcorn container would grow into corn plants. I had no idea since I've never planted corn before. We took a couple of the kernals and wrapped them in a moist paper towel and wrapped that in plastic. It was forgotten about until last night. We opened it up and and the kernals were growing!! I couldn't beleive my eyes, each kernal had about 2 inches of stem/root growing out of them already.

I have a few questions I was hoping to get help with.
1. Can I plant these in the ground and have actual corn plants grow?
2. Is that how long corn usually takes to germinate is 4 days? (that was fast)

3. How do you upload pictures? I can post some of the corn!

It will grow corn plants but I'm sure you'll just get popcorn corn. Usually a smaller variety then normal corn. It's dried out and shucked and used for just popcorn.

Some varieties germinate pretty quick especially in wet paper towel...

You need to use a photo hosting site, you upload your picks there than copy and paste them here. I use 'Photobucket'...it's free.

Thank you Tamara. I didn't know there was different kinds of corn plants for eating say corn on the cob and then popcorn corn. You wouldn't happen to know how to dry it out so i could store it for future popcorn making would you?

I'm going to try and attached a sample picture to see if it works.

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I took this picture in my backyard

Congrats on posting your pic, lovely rose.

There's different kinds of popcorn, some are rice and some are pearl shaped. Some varieties produce mushroom or butterfly shaped popped kernals or a mix of the two. Some are coloured as well.

My grandmother always used to leave the popcorn on the stalks to dry....mind you that was the real eating corn turned into popcorn, wasn't the best but thats the only kind you could get back then. She'd then store them in a dry place in a mesh bag(an onion bag would work) and dry it for months and months. She said the best popcorn would be dried for a year...

I got some special strawberry popcorn seeds in a trade, this will be my first year in trying the 'home grown popcorn'. I guess we'll learn the process together.

hope you two will keep us informed on how the popcorn thing goes. sounds fun! I'd try here, but have too many deer.

I bought some home grown popcorn still on the cob one time. it is all in how your dry it out before you shuck (sp) it.-- My cousin & I both bought some one time--mine didn't pop so well--my cousins was wonderful---so good luck!!!

the kids on the next farm grew it---i would buy it from tehm every year- it was great--(all ready to go & everything)

I only grow sweet corn.Wish I could get some popcorn seeds.

Netty has different kinds of popcorn seeds for trade in the seed trade forum. That's where I got mine from.

Oh and you can't plant both varieties close to each other either Enrique, you don't want them to cross-pollinate.

emdeGardener2

You know the bags of popcorn you buy in the store...the kind you put in a big pot with a little oil and a lid on the stovetop; you keep shaking it until its all popped? Not the popcorn you buy in a bag and pop in the microwave. Thats the popcorn I used to see if it would grow...I was amazed when it did. I'll take some pictures tonight and post them tomorrow. So you could get some popcorn seeds pretty easy if you went to the grocery store

I'll keep you posted!! I'm going to put up some pics tomorrow.

I'll just pollinate them by hand.

If you have 2 rows they pollinate themselves...

Attached are some pics of the popcorn seeds we experimented with.........



This is the popcorn




This what it looks like after we wrapped a few pieces in a moist paper towel and plastic wrap (last Saturday).


I'm going to try to plant them in the ground today

Good luck Dana.

Enrique just remember if you plant regular corn and popcorn, they might cross pollinate with each other.