Here I want to document my adaptation of corn to Denmark, to the tastes of the chef students I teach as well as my neglectful gardening style. My plan is to separate out the three usual types: sweet corn and flour corn for sure (mixing dent, flint and flour types), perhaps pop corn too.
2023 - the beginning
I have almost entirely left out growing grasses in my years as a gardener and last year was the first time I grew corn. I grew plants in one bed of approx. two m2. My seed came from a diverse sweet corn variety called ‘Arc En Ciel Inca’, a variety called Black Mexican, some locally adapted seed of @Logan and the serendipitous mix from our seed chain in Europe. Overall, they grew pretty well. Some of them were possibly flour corn, judging on the look of the cobs (not as wrinkled).
Diverse sweetcorn of unknown origin
Probably Black Mexican
2024 - Surprisingly good growth
Second year, I added more varieties and decided to plant much much closer, probably 5-10 cm distances. Still the same small bed of two m2. Cobs and overall yield were both bigger, probably 2-3 times as much. I also harvested a few weeks earlier, as rodents ate a big part of the harvest last year over night.
First batch harvested
Second batch from same bed
I adore these colors. Next year we will begin selecting for flavor with the students.
Late in the season, I also got access to what will become a more proper breeding field for the school. Although much later than anyone would sow corn in this climate, I gave it a go anyway, to learn something about the field and if nothing else select for fast maturation. These corn were grown in an absolutely neglectful way. The soil had been harrowed before, but no weeding and watering - I didn’t even water them in.
Here they are shortly after being planted in July:
40 days later with perennial kale underplanted. Luckily, we had lots of rainfall this summer:
Harvested (thank you @Hekseringen ) this week, together with the single mature zucchini fruit among 200 Cucurbita plants lol. Corn seems to be easy growing here, even when I literally do nothing. I understand why the whole world grows this plant.
2025 - Scaling up and selecting for flavor
I feel confident enough about growing corn now to scale up the volume a bit and get the students involved. Next year I plan to grow sweet corn in a bed at least 30 times larger, sweet corn and flour on approx 30 m2 each and maybe a small plot of popcorn. I’ll probably add more genetics, but want to start prioritizing the seed that is adapting to my conditions here.