Traditionally we've only grown sweetcorn for the table, so this year we decided to go with a popcorn just for fun. Our first go at Popcorn was with a mini blue corn variety.
Planting out the corn
I planted out around 20 plants in 1 metre square. Spaced slightly closer than what I would for regular sweet corn, because I thought they were mini. They still don't get the thick stalks you see on other corns so you can space them 15cm apart.
Having never grown the plant before I thought mini meant the size of the plant, but nope I was wrong, they grew to around 1.5 metres. The mini is for the size of the cob. The plants are around the same size as a regular sweet corn, they just have 4 cobs per plant.
I am not going to lie, I thought it was a bad sign seeing the 4 ears forming initially. Usually if that happens on sweet corn we get the tiniest cobs that are barely worth having.
When to plant
If you live in the subtropics, the best thing you can do for corn is wait for the rain. Unless you have endless water, or don't care that a corn cob could potentially cost you $30 a cob from an excessive water bill. Corn (regardless of type) needs loads and loads of water. We planted these in Mid January and I barely had to water them because our highest rainfall months are Jan-March. If water isn't a concern and then these are for Spring and Summer.
Bed Preparation
This bed was actually an odd one, it was the end of my old straw bale garden that didn't do too well over the super hot dry months, I put the birdies raised bed over the bales then I loaded up lasagne style with compost and well rotted manure. It worked really well.
The harvest
I had full planned to let them fully dry out on the plants but I decided to harvest when they still had a hint of green as we were due to get a lot of rain and I didn't want them to get mouldy.
You can see the harvest and the end product in our YouTube video here.
Where to get mini blue pop corn seeds
These are tricky to find, but I've saved the best seeds for you guys and if you're in Australia (in states I can ship to) you can grab them from my seed shop.
