Corn

I have been reading Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has made me think about how corn has, according to Pollan, colonized us. It is an interesting premise that a plant has used us in order to perpetuate its species.

Corn is everywhere and it is in everything we eat; it is in the feed of the dairy and beef cattle, it is in the chicken feed, and it is used in almost every processed food preparation. For a period of time, I developed food sensitivities and one of the chief suspects was corn. I tried to avoid corn, which I soon realized was absolutely impossible. Corn was even in my cosmetics and my toothpaste.

Pollan explains that corn is almost incapable of surviving without us. That the same reason corn is so attractive to us, its rich, large kernels, also means that it can’t easily reseed itself. When corn is left unharvested on a field, the thick outer husk prevents the seeds from scattering. If the husk lies on the ground and manages to sprout, the volume of seeds means that each sprouting kernel would suffocate the other. A neighbour grows corn in the back fields of the farm, each harvest a few husks are left on the ground, even though they have been planting corn there for several years, I have never seen one corn volunteer. Pollan estimates that if we stopped planting corn, it would only last one or two seasons before it died out.

An interesting question is, “How did corn become corn?

From the Garden

The world' largest fennel! I discovered the secret to sizing up fennel bulbs this year, and it is all in the transplating of the seedlings. You must start the plants and then transplant them, otherwise the tend to grow up, not out.

The late corn is just about ready. Beside it, the remaining raspberries are all suffering from cane blight. I have been cutting out the blighted canes and it looks like they are all blighted. Worried about next year's crop.
The fall garden is slowly finishing. The summer squash are almost done. Everything is now grown. Already, a plan is forming for next year.