They Can’t Starve Us Out: Growing Grain Corn

They Can’t Starve Us Out: Growing Grain Corn

During the pandemic, we saw soaring seed sales as folks turned back to the soil, digging up backyards and planting container gardens. Faced with uncertainty, humans so often turn to the garden, and they should! 

As we face political turmoil, mass layoffs, the disruption of public assistance programs and rising grocery prices, folks are once again looking to the land. Even a small container garden can be an act of hope and resilience in a time when every penny counts. But, for us rural folks with access to more land, we can (and should) look beyond produce and herbs to calorie dense staple crops.

Shockingly, rural families are more likely to be food insecure. The USDA estimates that 13.5 percent (18.0 million) of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2023. When you narrow in on rural households, the percent is even higher, jumping to 15.4% in 2023. 

Surely, these numbers are unlikely to improve in the coming year and while I acknowledge that both access to land and time to garden are privileges, for those of us that have them, it’s time to use them. 

That’s why we’re dedicating more of the garden to crops that fill you up and nourish you at the same time. These calorie-dense, prolific producers come in many forms. I think about the big hard-shelled NC Candy Roaster winter squashes we can leave sitting in the kitchen for most of the winter, fluffy Yukon gold potatoes that make the best fries and mash, the sweet potatoes which vine so vigorously they smother weeds, and the wheat that patiently bides its time over the winter before offering a summer harvest. 

Despite being the most calorie-dense, staple crops are all among the most low-maintenance plants you’ll find in my garden. Once established, they can tolerate moderate droughts, handle a bit of pest pressure, and often out-compete most weeds. 

But, on our farm, we’ve found one crop that, pound for pound, easily out-competes the rest: Bloody Butcher Dent corn. This corn is a type of grain corn we use to make grits, cornbread, and tortillas. 

Bloody Butcher and other grain corns are easy to grow, drought tolerant, highly productive, nutritious, and calorie dense. When properly processed, grain corn (including dent, flint, and flour) corn can provide the basis of a healthy diet. 

In this post, I’ll cover growing dent corn and in the next post, I’ll dig into the process of nixtamalization which makes the nutrients in corn absorbable for the human body. 

What is Grain Corn?

There are hundreds of corn cultivars out there, but we can roughly divide them into three categories: sweet corn, popcorn, and grain corn.

Typically, people harvest sweet corn in the milk stake, when the kernels are still fresh and sweet. It’s the corn you eat on the cob at summer barbecues and the one you buy frozen or canned at the grocery store. You think of it as firmly in the vegetable category.

Popcorns include the varieties that pop well, though that doesn’t mean you couldn’t use them in other ways. They won’t be near as sweet as sweet corn in the milk stage, but when they’re mature, hard, and dry, you could grind them for grain or weird dishes like popcorn pie.

Grain corns are exactly like they sound. Like wheat, rye, and barley, they’ve been bred for their starchy, filling properties. You can use grain corn to make grits, tortillas, polenta, corn bread, griddle cakes and more. You can also catch many grain corn varieties in the milk stage. They will be sweet and offer plenty of corn flavor, but are still much less sweet than true sweet corn. You could also pop them, but they won’t pop well. While I can’t suggest you do, you can also malt grain corns to make alcohol.

Flour, Flint, and Dent Corn

Within the grain corn division, you can further separate varieties into flour corn, flint corn, and dent corn. These three types of corn evolved in different places in the Americas and have different strengths and weaknesses. You’ll notice looking at the seed for these types that their kernel composition varies and this means that they’re best suited for different recipes.

Flour Corn

Native Americans stewarded flour corn in the Southwest for centuries. Many of these varieties are very drought tolerant. As the name suggests, flour kernels have relatively soft kernels that grinds into a nice, fine flour. Their flour is so soft you can use it almost like wheat flour, though it lacks gluten. They also make wonderful tortillas. 

Flint Corn

Flint corns are the most cold hardy grain corn, and you’ll find many of these heirloom varieties come from the Northeast. The kernels are hard and pointed, a bit like popcorn kernels. As they are very hard, they’re best suited to recipes that require long boils or cooking. Try flint for Johnny cakes or polenta. 

Dent Corn

Dent corn includes most of the heirloom varieties from Appalachia, the Southeast, and the Midwest. You’ll find hybrid dents too, but they pale in flavor and nutritional value compared with their heirloom counterparts. Dent corn tend tolerates the humid, hot summers of Appalachia and the Southeast much better than flint. 

Dent corn kernels have a flinty ring around the outside and a soft floury center. This soft center dips in as the kernel dries, giving each kernel a dent. Dent corns are wonderful for hominy, grits, and cornbread. You can also eat dent in the milk stage like sweet corn. Though not as sweet, it has excellent flavor. 

Gourdseed Corn

Gourdseed corn is one of the oldest corns we still have and it was almost lost to history. Gourdseed features unique pumpkin-seed shaped, thin, deep kernels that are extremely easy to shell, some varieties will fall off with a gentle touch. 

Gourdseed was bred by Native Americans and our oldest varieties date to 1700. It was popular for flour, roasting, and animal feed and in 1889 won the American Agriculturist Great Corn Contest by yielding 255 bushels per acre. It remained popular into the 1940s when hybrids and mechanized harvesters came on the scene. By the 1960s, they were basically extinct and you could no longer find them in seed catalogs.

Thankfully, modern corn diseases have pushed researchers to dig into old varieties. Dr. Brown, former president of Pioneer Hi-Bred rediscovered gourdseed corn on a Texas farm. Gourdseed is once again getting some notoriety both among heirloom enthusiasts and those interested in developing disease resistant corn varieties. Gourdseed is resistant to Southern Leaf Blight and several other diseases. 

Why Grow Grain Corn?

There are so many reasons to grow this under-used crop!

• Growing grain corn and saving seed from your favorite variety helps keep open pollinated heirlooms alive and preserves biodiversity. This can help protect traits like disease resistance and strengthen our food system.
  
• They’re incredibly productive. Grain corn produces a lot of food for the amount of resources and effort you put into it.
  
• Grain corn is part of the ancient agricultural systems that Native Americans developed. In most of the what’s now the United States, these old grain corns have been adapting to the climate and region for hundreds if not thousands of years.
  
• It’s much more nutritious than what you’ll buy at the store. Old corn varieties are higher in protein and minerals than modern hybrid or GMO varieties.
  
• Growing grain corn can help preserve agricultural and food traditions. In many places, grain corn is or was part of the American food culture that existed before industrialized food. My mom remembers her grandparents eating grits with crabs or lobster in coastal Maine and my husband’s family passed down the tradition of flavorful cornbread from homegrown corn. 

Where Can I Grow Grain Corn?

You can grow grain corn throughout most of the United States and much of the world, too. These sturdy corns tolerate a fairly wide range of climates. The key is to select a type and variety that is adapted to your climate. 

This is especially key in northern areas where your limited number of frost-free days will dictate which varieties you can grow. Consider that Cherokee Gourdseed and Bloody Butcher need 120 days to reach maturity, while Blue Mountain Flint needs just 88 days. Know your numbers!

How to Plant Grain Corn

Corn is a perfect beginner crop. It’s easy to plant, maintain, and harvest. There are a few steps involved:

• Prepare your garden. Grain corns are tough, but as with any plant, the better the soil, the better the yield. Fertile, well-draining soil is best.
  
  If available, you can add compost to the tops of your garden bed. We’ve still had success without this step though, so if your budget is too tight and you don’t make enough compost, don’t worry about it.
  
• Sow your corn after the danger of frost has passed and the soil temperature has reached 55°F or above. If you don’t have a soil thermometer, use the old timer’s method, watch for when the oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears.
  
• Sow corn seed 1 inch deep. Generally, seed companies recommend sowing grain corn 12 to 24 inches apart in rows 36 inches apart. Look at the estimated height of your variety. Smaller varieties do just fine at 12 inches while larger varieties may need 24 inches. We’ve gone as close as 8 inches, but your soil will need more fertility to withstand closer spacing.
  
• Plant your corn in blocks at least 5 rows wide. Corn is wind pollinated, so having enough is essential for good pollination and nicely filled ears.
  
• When we plant in spring, we typically rely on our fairly predictable spring rains. However, if you’re in a drought or live somewhere arid, watering while the corn is germinating and getting established is a good idea.
  
• If you’re interested in a three sisters garden (corn, beans, and squash) you will plant the beans and then squash once the corn has a head start. Read more about the three sisters technique from the experts at Native Seeds SEARCH.
  
• Keep up with weeding while your corn is small. As it grows, it will probably shade out most of the weeds, especially in a three sisters set up.
  
• To harvest ears at the milk stage (like sweet corn) or for roasting, wait until the ears have leaned away from the stalks and the silks have turned brown. If you open an ear and puncture a kernel with your thumbnail, milk-like juice should come out. Use your harvest quickly. Harvested ears lose 50% of their sugar in 24 hours when kept at room temperature.
  
• To harvest corn for dry corn for polenta, cornmeal, grits, etc., pick the ears when the husks have fully dried and turned yellow or brown. 

Stay tuned for next week’s post. I’ll cover drying, storing, nixtamilizing, and cooking with your grain corn.