Corn dilemmas, or What's your favorite variety?

Ever since digging up a good portion of our lawn to grow corn and squash five years ago, my biggest problem has been deciding which varieties to grow because we like them all!

Popcorn, sweet corn, flour corn! We've grown all three kinds with varying success. I know they easily cross but we don't have much wind in the summer so I find I have to hand pollinate the corn anyway. So just separating them by about 12-20' seems to be working.

We've been growing Dakota black popcorn, Painted Mountain, and whatever random sweet corn hybrid I find at the garden store.

But I feel like I need to grow more! It's like limiting myself to only eating a couple different kinds of apples when I know there are 100's of different ones to enjoy.

What are your favorite corn varieties and why?

Silver Queen

Silver Queen & a dent variety didn't do well for me this year. I think the seeds were too old. Fortunately another hybrid variety of sweet corn is almost ready to harvest.

I've grown several types of sweet corn the past few years. Enjoyed it all.

Two other types I've experimented with are Cherokee popcorn & Hiren's corn. The popcorn has a variety of colors & makes tiny popcorn. The Hiren's is the small ears used in oriental food.

Last year I planted “painted mountain” and enjoyed that because it was a beautiful plant. It is a good sweet corn too, if picked young. I’m trying out “strawberry popcorn” and Cherokee black eagle corn this year; we’ll see how they turn out. So far, better germination rate from the strawberry popcorn, but Cherokee black eagle is taller and more robust plants.