Saving Seeds from Our Glass Gem Corn

This afternoon Tricia and Ginger the cat helped save seed from our Glass Gem Corn.  Glass Gem Corn was one of those experimental things I tried.  It is a sweet corn that makes an ear with multi-colored kernels.  While not a prolific producer, the ears were stunningly beautiful!  I ate one ear raw out in the garden, but to be perfectly honest, we didn't eat a single ear and I ended up drying them all for seed.  What I found was that if you picked the Glass Gem Corn when the silk turned brown, the kernels were all white/light pink.  Conversely, if I left them on the cob to ripen, they turned out with beautiful colors, but were too ripe/hard to eat.  Soooo, they all became seed corn.  We dried them on the patio for several weeks and then twisted the kernels off the cob.

Different cobs had varying amounts of color.  Some were multicolored and some were mostly yellow.

Twisting the kernels off the cob, you could see a wide assortment of colors.

I selected a representative sample from all of the color groups I could find, from red, yellow, pink, purple, green, blue, and white.  I'm sure there were different hues that I just didn't have the patience to pick out.

I stored all of the dried kernels of Glass Gem Corn in a container where they will sit in the dark in dry storage until next year, when I'll pull a few out and plant maybe a row of them.  I like to plant a few novelty items each year.  They are beautiful and a nice conversation piece.