Popcorn and Dent Corn

It looks a bit like yellow sweet corn, but the kernels are larger, flatter, have a slight dent on their outer surface (hence the name dent corn) and have been left to mature to a dry, storage state. This yellow corn is intended for yellow corn meal. From this point on it will be left to dry in the field a bit longer, then threshed off the cob when someone has time to do it. Then the loose, dry corn will store until periodic milling creates corn meal and polenta all winter long. See if you can get your hands on some yellow this season, last year local farm supporting restaurant Rosso Pizzeria consumed nearly the entire crop in order to fill their menu and serve their customers. We couldn't complain, but a few of you did when seeking a traditionally hued corn meal.

Then there is the popcorn. There is a visible difference between this corn and the former. Small and hard kernels that burst when provided the right conditions, versus the large and smooth dent kernels shown above that are obviously much better suited for flour processing.

So many types of corn are out there. No wonder scientists have gone crazy trying to modify the genes into the next best thing. Corn crops also cross pollinate readily on their own. On the farm they are kept in separate blocks to ensure this does not occur as we like to keep consistent strains of the heirloom types chosen to grow and save the seed for future corn generations on the farm. This season there are blue, green, yellow and pink cornmeal crops on their way to harvest any moment. The red popcorn is out there and perhaps a few stalks of blue (this was less successful). Is is a fun time to take a stroll in the field to observe the corn in it's mature state. You are always welcome to do just that.

Farming With The Wild

Look closely and you will note the slender and graceful presence of local reptile assistance on the farm, the garter snake. This particular guy is hunting and subsisting amidst the Nothstein Dent corn (that is your yellow corn meal corn, much of which is likely to be snatched up by Rosso Pizzeria who adores it for their polenta dishes). Scenes like this are indicative of the healthy system and ecosystem alive on the farm. A living soil has worms, a healthy environment contains a diversity of organisms, nature and food production co-exist in harmony at the farm on Airport Boulevard.

Greenhouse Review

Sunday, April 18th, was our Greenhouse Open House Event. Drop in guests from across Chalk Hill Road to as far away as San Francisco dropped in throughout the day, some familiar with the farm and all it does, others simply curious about topics of growing and seeking an opportunity to engage in discussion. Many people went home with a plant or two to stick in their own gardens and a taste of the well known chile jams.

I feel horrible that I came away from this day with no group shots! Next time! I was able to document the plants as usual and will provide a short visual tour of what I saw this season in the greenhouse. As my first visit to the place in 2010, I was overly impressed with how well managed things seemed in there. Meet Zeni, Lee's number one right hand woman in the greenhouse and all things that occur to assist the farm at the Chalk Hill Road property.

Zeni goes about her midday watering responsibility after helping prepare for the Greenhouse Event last Sunday....Lee's pup, Cloudy, has a thing for water and water wands in particular. This complicates the watering process somewhat as it becomes a game and a job all at once.


Baby chiles here. This is a small fraction of the bigger picture.



Baby basil with a steaming camera lens. Many visitors were chased right out of some of the more heated areas of the greenhouse on Sunday as it was such a beautiful day....it was also one of the warmer days yet in the greenhouse. Others enjoyed and basked in the hot and humid climate that could be found in the specialty structure.


Corn. Tierra grows sweet corn, popcorn, flour corns, hominy corn. Which one is this? I'm not sure, I never asked Lee. My guess it that this is a flour corn that takes a long time to mature. The greenhouse start gives it a boost to ensure it matures before cold weather comes in fall and that pests do not damage baby seedlings in the field as often happens when things are direct seeded in spring.



Chiles....Ancho specifically. I think these are my favorite. The immature green Poblano will do, but a sweet and spicy, ripe, red Ancho is perfect for everything. I could eat a roasted Ancho a day and maybe I will when their season rolls around this summer/fall. Looks like there will be lots as usual!


Overview of red malabar spinach (a heat loving green that grows like a vine), first year asparagus seedlings (to plant out in 2011), previously described corn and a mix of basil and chiles.


Close up is either cabbage, broccoli or cauliflower....I think cabbage based on the leaf shape. These will go out to the farm field immediately, maybe today or tomorrow. They are ready and we just need the weather to allow access into the field. Behind is a sea of other brassicas and tomatoes and lettuce. All ready for a life in the great outdoors.


One more look at the forest of tomatoes and lettuce ready to go out. You could eat a salad right out of the greenhouse right now. Lee is masterful at bringing plants to a healthy and mature state before putting them outside. This approach gives them all that much more ability to survive the unexpected conditions that could impact them once exiting the greenhouse including weather, pests, soil, water, whatever!

A big thanks to everyone who came out to appreciate some the work that goes on behind the scenes on the farm. We hope you learned something new and look forward to seeing your faces again at our next gathering this season and at the farm stand, CSA, or farmer's market all season long.

Finally, check out this You Tube Video production by one of our guests of the open house, he took it upon himself to do a thorough overview of the structure and has shared his enthusiasm for all to watch and learn.

More on Corn Meal

The dried corn harvest is now and nearly complete. This means that the 2009 corn meal selection will be available from here on out....until it sells out. Be creative, colorful, plan some special uses for the holidays or just incorporate locally grown corn flour into your daily and weekly uses. Access to such a fresh and sweet product like this is not so common, take advantage and tell your friends!


Here are just some of the harvest bins full of dried corn. In the background are the Hopi Blue flour corn, quite a successful crop this season. There is more blue corn than last season and the quality is near perfection. See, there are many moments of success in farming! In the foreground on the left is Hopi Pink. Proving less perfect than the blue variety, Wayne admitted to having to sort through this one a bit. The kernels often did not come out as pink as one might hope and a lot of white was mixed in, washing out the beautiful colors that the variety had been selected for. On the right are many of those cobs that had cross bred or come out with inconsistency.

Note how the blue kernels somehow cross-bred their way into this (I think it was supposed to be Hopi Pink) cob. Perhaps images like this will make you think about what your corn meal looked like prior to processing...cross breeding colors like this may or may not produce an aesthetically pleasing flour for a consumer. Ah, more of the trials a farmer faces.

Here is the Hopi Pink, after sorting out the less pink colored cobs that slipped in. It ought to be beautiful to work with...pink corn muffins and bread, pink grits, why not? It would be nice to wait until Valentine's Day for an occasion like this, but I predict this color will not make it to February before being sold out for the season.

On the other hand, there is a lot of Hopi Blue it seems. That is a good thing because it proved to be a great corn meal last season. I have memories of the toasty brown crust on the outside of a blue muffin with chile flakes inside that Lee made last winter. Notice the size of these cobs. Notice how uniform the kernels grew. Wayne was showing me a technique of counting the rows of kernels that the field manager, Pablo, uses to judge a great cob of corn.

Finally, here is the Oaxacan Green. It is simply blue and yellow makes green....as basic as learning your primary colors. I'm looking forward to observing this one post-milling in it's green flour form. It also leaves me inspired to mix blue and pink to make purple. Why not?

This harvest season at Tierra you may find corn meal in a grand variety of colors (variety is unavoidable at this farm) from yellow to blue to pink to green and whatever you might mix and create in between. Enjoy!

Topics on Corn

I can only assume this is the Nothstein Dent corn, grown for flour/corn meal processing. It seems a reasonable assumption since it is yellow, dried up, and full of characteristic "dent" kernels. So it seems your yellow corn flour for 2009-2010 is about ready for harvest.

Here is the Oaxacan Green corn, also grown for flour. This one is new this season. Those of you who followed the corn meal last season may recall the yellow (pictured above), a blue called Hopi Blue and a red one called Bloody Butcher. Now we have green to add to the list of color, flavor, and diversity. It ought to be fun to compare results as usual.

I think this is a Peruvian (?) black corn? Grown for corn meal/flour. I'm working off info I gathered during spring seeding with Lee, but have since only wandered the fields w/o the farmer to be certain of what is what. With so many kinds of corn out there it is hard to keep it all straight. Anyhow, here is another diverse color, a deep, dark black kernel. I wonder how it will turn out after running through the mill.

And now I transition away from the topic of corn flour and onto the topic of corn pests. This is fresh corn we see now.....sweet, fresh corn. Unfortunately, everyone likes a good sweet veggie like this, including the Corn Worm. If you can look past the worm and it's damage, you are rewarded with an incredible seasonal treat, grown without the influence of chemicals or pesticides to rid the crop of this kind of thing. I tend to remind people that this pest evidence is their organic certification in living flesh....try to look at it optimistically this way. One way to avoid the corn worm is to plant an early crop of corn. This way, you may be able to harvest the crop prior to the development of the pest. Like the growth cycle of plants, pests require certain environmental conditions for their complete development.

Ever seen this? I hadn't until a farmer pointed it out to me a couple of years back. Corn smut is a fungal growth. Sometimes it is even a delicacy.....like mushrooms? Whether good or bad in one's perspective as a foodie delicacy or a growers fungal disease, I think it is all interesting.

Enjoy your corn, fresh now and dried for later. Hope you gained some insight into the broader picture of what and how it is done at Tierra.

The long, drawn out arrival of summer vegetables

Many of you have come by the farm stand seeking tomatoes, strawberries, corn, beans, etc.... I think I can confidently say it is all available now. It always seems to take to the end of July before abundant quantities of things we wander around waiting all season for, like tomatoes, actually arrive. Variety is still on hold as heirlooms take a bit more time to mature often, but tomatoes are ripe! Strawberries are available in some limited numbers...they aren't lasting all day long as supply hardly keeps up with demand, but there are lots now. Corn is just beginning to harvest from the first crop this season, please keep coming to try and get your hands on some.

Why does it take so long? In a grower's world there is something called a heat unit, also called Degree Days, when looking at things scientifically. This concept can be hard to grasp if you aren't used to thinking this way, but basically is the amount of heat that occurs each day above a certain benchmark temperature. These heat units are what contributes to growth. It may refer to growth of the vegetable plants and the progress in their vegetable production or is also used to determine life cycles of certain farm pests, say for instance, when the tomato hornworm is going to arrive on your beloved plants for the season, chewing away at the plant in camouflaged ecstasy.

Sonoma County is a great place to grow in general. There are many cold nights and foggy mornings that do not contribute to the seasonal progress of warm season vegetable production, limiting the heat units per day. If you go looking for it, you will find your warm season favorites shipped in from southern California and the Central Valley far sooner than your local community is able to provide these items. This makes it all the more special when that time is here and that time is now! No shipping involved, harvest season is here, get ready to preserve and enjoy the bounty of 2009.

Enjoy your veggies. Summer harvest season is on at your local farm.

In the Field: Planting Corn

Sweet corn, flour corn, and popcorn are being squeezed into the field and many varieties of each. Perhaps less sweet corn will be grown this year than in year's past in order to accommodate space for a wide array of flour corns which were a great success in the 2008 season. The types and colors of corn flours will be expanded this season to include pink and green and more yellows and blues. There are so many kinds to try and only so much land to use at this time...


The image above is a handful of the Hopi Pink flour corn seed as it is prepared for planting. A few imperfect kernels had to be plucked out of the seed to insure a good pure crop. Also considerable is the placement of these many corn varieties in the field. If grown at the same time and in the same vicinity to each other varieties may cross thereby creating problems with the ability to save seed down the road.


Wayne drives the tractor, Lee follows along to be sure the seed hoppers do not clog or run out and that the seeds are properly spaced and at the right depth, Kara follows along as field record keeper and makes notes of what goes where as planting decisions are made.

Growing and Grinding Corn

This week's winter CSA box will include a 1 pound bag of corn meal (choice of blue or yellow). Previously, the CSA was given popping corn and hominy to enjoy. Back in the middle of summer, sweet corn was on the menu, with or without a few corn worms to work around.

Tierra grows a variety of corn types. The wide world of corn includes sweet corn (what we are used to eating fresh), flint corn (the native varieties, a little difficult to process), dent corn (bred for good flour and polenta processing), flour corn, parching corn, popping corn, and many more categories exist. In 2008, Tierra grew sweet corn for fresh eating, popcorn for snacking, a yellow dent corn for flour/polenta/cooking, a blue flour corn for similar purposes, and a red flour corn called Bloody Butcher which was the first to sell out this season. This grand selection of local corn products will only expand in seasons to come.

A flour mill was purchased last season, expanding capabilities to produce corn meal and additional grains in the future. Weekly corn grinding is head-splitting event as the machine is quite loud. Wayne takes on the job with ear plugs and endurance.
From this point the corn meal is weighed and bagged fresh for market. Lee has made corn muffins, breads, polentas, or corn meal mush. We have added chiles to the muffins and used our chile jams and Tierra-produced honey for toppings. Customers have raved about making corn meal pancakes. The uses go on and on.

Enjoy your freshly ground corn meal this week and as long as it is available. After handing out over 100 pounds to supply the CSA, supplies will be short until next seasons rolls around.

On a nutritional note, consider the benefits of your fresh and local product versus the commercially processed standard. The corn meal produced by the farm has not been de-germed prior to grinding. Therefore, you are being offered a product in it's whole grain form with maximum nutrition and flavor. Typically in the production of corn meal, polentas and grits, the germ is removed like other grains long before ever making it into our kitchens.