Growing Popcorn Corn

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Look for mail-order seeds in the Mother Earth News Seed and Plant Finder.

Planting Popcorn Corn

Once you've located fertile seeds, plant them exactly as you would sweet corn. (Soak the kernels for 12 hours before planting, then set them 1 to 1-1/2 inches deep and 8 to 10 inches apart.) Keep the patch weed-free, and—when the stalks are knee-high—heap up soil around the exposed roots to give the plants additional support ... they'll shoot up like magic.

Harvesting Popcorn for Drying

After 85 to 120 days (the time varies from species to species), the popcorn will be mature ... and you'll have to decide whether to use your oven or the sun to dry the kernels.

In areas where the autumn is relatively free from rain, corn can simply be dried on the stalks after it ripens. A "pop test" will let you know when the process is complete. Just cook a few kernels as you normally would ... if the corn pops poorly and sticks to the pan, you'll know it needs to "sun" for a while longer.

I have a neighbor who husks his ears of popcorn and then dries them in a wheelbarrow. He just pushes the load out into the sunshine on warm days, and shifts the ears around often to assure even drying.

Popcorn stored on the ears takes up a lot more space, however, than do loose kernels. I've found that the quickest way to process a good harvest is to husk and shell the ears after they've stalk—dried for two months and then—setting aside some seed for next year's crop—oven-dry the kernels to perfection. (Hand-shelling, it's true, is a slow and often painful process ... but you can still find small, old-timey corn shellers at farm auctions and such for around $5.00. Or, if you have a large "modern" sheller—and a lot of popcorn—it might be worth your while to get out the tractor and pulleys to do the job.)

To oven—dry your shelled popcorn, just preheat the stove to 300°F and put a large pan (a turkey roaster will do) of kernels on the rack. Then, turn the oven down to its lowest setting immediately, and dry the corn—stirring it occasionally—for five hours. After that time you can turn the heat off and leave the kernels in the oven to cool overnight. They'll be "poppin' perfect" by morning.

(It is possible to dry corn too thoroughly, though. I forgot to turn my preheated oven down, once, and returned a little later to a house that smelled suspiciously like cooked corn. The kernels were so dry that they wouldn't pop at all! But, I just sprinkled the popcorn with a little water, put it in a tight—lidded bucket, and left the closed container in the fridge for a week. The remoistened corn popped just fine.)

No matter how carefully you husk and shell your corn, a few crinkled silks—as well as some chaff and cob residue—will get mixed in with the kernels. This refuse can cause the popped corn to scorch, so it's best to clean each batch before you store it. All you have to do is pour the popcorn, slowly, from one bucket to another ... and let the wind (or an electric fan) carry away the debris.

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