I'll be honest and say that until a few years ago I had no idea that you could grow your own popcorn in the backyard. The first popping corn we tried was the strawberry popping corn. This year we're giving the Glass Gem Corn a go. It's our second attempt as it was a bit of a failed crop when we planted them in large flexi tubs previously. There's nothing wrong with growing corn in large containers, except for when you go are away often over summer you really do need someone to keep them well watered.
We planted our Glass Gem Corn seeds some time ago so now. The reason we planted them early is because we also want to grow sweetcorn this year. What we don't want is for the two to cross pollinate. I think from memory that as long as you plant your seeds a few weeks apart you're generally okay. Sarah mentioned that otherwise you'd need to plant the two crops a good 70 metres apart. Obviously this isn't realistic in most home gardens so sowing the seeds a few weeks apart works well for us.
Glass Gem Corn has the most amazing colours. It really is like rainbow corn for the kids to grow. Luke soaked his seedlings in seaweed tonic prior to planting out. He then spaced them out and used our tape measure to measure out a distance of 30cm.
Corn prefers to grow in blocks, as it's wind pollinated so we always take that into consideration in our garden plan. As it's a novelty crop, we've only planted twelve plants. This is probably the bare minimum you'd want to plant, but it will allow more space in the garden for other things and all going well Luke should still get some popcorn for a movie night. It's well worth a look at if you've got children.
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