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.

Saving Bloody Butcher Dent Corn For Seed

In THIS POST from about 3 weeks ago, we discussed the method we used for drying and saving our Bloody Butcher Dent (Field) Corn for seed.  We got this heirloom seed at a seed exchange and this corn is primarily used to grind into cornmeal or grits.  How cool would that be to have a warm bowl of pink grits for breakfast?  Well, the amount of seeds given to me was not in an quantity that allowed for eating - this year.

Learning to be patient is a good thing.  Don't they say that good things come to those who wait?  I figured that I would grow the corn for seed this year and next year put in a patch of Bloody Butcher seed corn from our initial crop that I'll use specifically for grinding into corn meal or grits.  I had never saved corn for seed before so it was interesting to learn how to do it.  With our high humidity, I was a little concerned that the seed wouldn't dry, but I took it inside when rain threatened and kept it on the window sill.

Bloody Butcher Seed Corn Drying

You know that the corn is dry when you can pick up the cob in your hand and twist it, and the kernels pop out easily.  Three weeks ago you could not do this, but lo and behold, after leaving them out on the patio in the hot, dry summer air (except on rainy days), they dried quickly - quicker than I thought.  When I passed by the other day and twisted, the corn popped off of the cob easily.

I think this corn is real pretty.  I decided to do a little quality control and I sorted through each and every kernel, inspecting it for damage.  Some of the kernels had bug damage.  I suspect ants had climbed up the stalk and eaten the germ.  The germ is the embryo of the corn kernel, and it is not going to sprout if the germ is gone.  Those kernels that were damaged were discarded into the compost pile, while the good seed was put aside.  I also removed some of the silk that remained mixed with the seed and was left with a nice sampling of seed corn for next year.

I'll put the saved seed into a container that held nutritional supplements and vitamins at one time, and they'll be stored in the container until it is time to plant next year.  I save those little silica gel packets that come in everything from vitamins to shoe boxes and I'll put a couple of those packets in each container of seeds I'm saving.  The packets are used to eliminate moisture and humidity, and I figure it will be very helpful in keeping my seeds in good condition until next Spring.   

Image Credit

I'm pretty pleased with the seeds that we were able to save.  Although the seeds look to be in real good shape, we won't know if our seed saving venture was successful until we put them in the ground next year and see what kind of germination rate we get.

Hopefully, we'll be able to post an entry next summer, showing a nice bowl of pink grits for breakfast, courtesy of Bloody Butcher Heirloom Dent Corn, evidencing the fact that good things do, in fact, come to those who wait.