The Painted Mountain corn produced some good-sized ears, despite being sown a month late. And some of those ears did start to dry out on the stalk outdoors. Not all of them, though. Nevertheless, when the first morning frost came last week and the plants died, I harvested them and brought them indoors to dry out and, hopefully, ripen.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

I hung them on the clothes drying rack and blew room-temperature air on them during the day. As the husks dried, I slowly peeled them away. When they were all dry, I ripped them off.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

They are beautiful indeed, although the pollination was a bit patchy. Which is to be expected – I planted about 60 seeds, but only about 40 germinated and grew to full size. So the growth wasn’t large or compact enough for proper pollination. And the late sowing was a problem as well, of course.

I will now wait until they are completely dry. Then I will strip the seeds from the cobs and test germination. I have zero experience growing corn for seed, so I don’t know whether anything I have done so far is good or bad for the seeds’ viability. Still, at least ten big ears were almost fully pollinated and already drying out when I harvested them, so I am hopeful that those seeds will be viable.

If they are viable, I would consider this a success, because I need “only” about 700 seeds for next year to sow a large area I already prepared for them. And 700 seeds would be rather expensive to buy – they cost 5€ per packet of 100 seeds. Plus, if these are viable despite very late sowing and very early harvest, it would mean they are now selected for a short vegetation period, which is exactly what I need. We shall see. I will, of course, let you know.