In early spring we made a trip to the feed store where they have a good selection of seeds. We had trouble getting Candy to leave but we did get a bounty of seeds, including corn!
We tilled the soil and planted the corn, watered and fertilized, watched it grow until you could barely see arms stretched above a head.
Now it's time to harvest our bounty!
Once picked we removed the husks right in the garden. A lot of them were perfect but because they're organic just as many had bugs. Not to worry, our chickens love bugs & corn!
While Candy guards the cut corn stalks and her ball, we're heading into the kitchen to turn fresh corn into everlasting corn.
We start by washing the cobs and removing most of any remaining hair. The cobs are then put into a steamer and placed in a pot with boiling water for five minutes. We're not trying to cook them, just blanch them. Once removed we allow them to cool before removing the kernels. You can do this with a knife or corn stripper but we've found an electric knife is the fastest and easiest way. Next we place the corn kernels on trays, spread them out and place them in our dehydrator overnight. Once dried they're removed from the dehydrator, then placed into jars and vacuum sealed for storage. They weigh very little and take up a lot less space. We fit 85 ears of corn into these two jars!!! We'll re-hydrate and use this corn throughout the winter in soups and casseroles.
