Gaspe flint corn

[897tgigvib]

We'll have to have a big party when I make Deeply Rooted!

Gaspe Flint Corn is sprouting!

 

[897tgigvib]

Hey Thistle! got some photos of some of the Gaspe flint!

 

[thistlebloom]

Hey! That's what mine looked like too Marshall!

 

[StupidBird]

Ditto on mine as well...a few well-filled cobs and the rest spotty (2012 season). I'm blaming drought and severe neglect. I've saved enough to plant a bigger square this year. Has anyone tried eating it as a sweet corn? I ate field corn that way as a child. I'm shooting for super early bragging rights if possible.
I set the transplants at 12" spacing last year, and will decrease that spacing to 9 inches ... what spacing did you folks use?

 

[897tgigvib]

Not sure if I actually measured the spacings, but at first they were like a foot apart, and then I filled in with a few more seeds to where they averaged more like your nine inches. Tiniest little cute plants!

Don't let even Tepary beans climb on them because they overwhelmed a couple plants on that side of my Gaspe Corn patch near them, though some of those smaller cobs came from those overwhelmed plants.

Oh, and I had planted a few Gaspes among my Japonica Striped Maize hoping to cross them but the Japonica overwhelmed those there too.

Gaspe would make an absolutely wonderful variety to cross with other varieties to get earlier versions of old fashioned natural hybridizing techniques that allow and embrace diversity. But if you do, make sure the other variety is planted the appropriate amount of time earlier, and I'd think the Gaspe would need to be planted generally south of the other variety, and UP higher in some kind of framed up bed to be nearer to the other variety's pollen, for the Gaspe should be the female parent, with her tassels removed. They come out QUICK. One of the technical sites I looked at even said that Gaspe is the only corn that has Tassels already forming in the embryo of the seed! (I googled it).

This is the thread that started me on TEG. Looking for Gaspe Flint Corn is what got me here, so I love this little Corn for that reason also!

I still and always feel gratitude and thanks to THISTLEBLOOM for sending me these seeds! Thank you Thistle!

 

[thistlebloom]

You're so welcome Marshall!

As to spacing 'Bird, I don't recall, but knowing me they were closer than recommended! I'm a terrible plant crammer.

 

[so lucky]

Please pardon me for trying to come late to the party, but what do you do with the Gaspe flint corn? Is it for cornmeal?

 

[StupidBird]

So lucky,

Not a dumb question...I think my DH is asking just the same thing! The first little packet of seed was to make more seed (2012) and to see how it performed in my Atlanta area climate vs. where it comes from (Canada). This year I will have enough to try something with if again successful. Um. What DO you do with this stuff? I know it's a flint/field type; but I'm going to test it for the superest earliest sweet corn. It would make an interesting container plant for my friends who only have a porch to put out potted plants.

I don't have a grain mill. Want one!

Anyone else, please?

 

[thistlebloom]

Well I planted it because of it's interesting description in the online seed catalog. I'm kind of a sucker that way. But it was fun, the stalks are so tiny, and I have plenty of room for playing with different crops. Heritage no longer sells to the U.S. btw.

I had thoughts of using it as cornmeal, but I planted such a small patch of it that I decided to just save the seed. I grew Painted Mountain corn nearby though, so the seed is possibly not true. They tasseled at different times though, so I guess I'll find out when I plant them.

Now Painted Mtn. makes an awesome corn bread! digitS got me interested in that one and I love it. You don't have to have a grainmill to use it for cornbread either. Seedcorn told us how to put it in the blender with your liquid ingredients and grind it that way.
Thanks again Seedcorn! I soak it overnight first though.

 

[897tgigvib]

I'd bet that there is no Corn that planted at the same time as Gaspe Flint Corn will tassle anywhere near as soon as the Gaspe. I was already picking dry ears from Gaspe when Japonica was just tasseling.

It is a great corn to keep exactly as is!

But, it is ALSO a great corn to cross with other early heirlooms to make them even earlier. Crossed the old fashioned way of course! None of this inbreeding for 5 generations first stuff.

Even Waheenee's Hidatsa tribe had some corns that were described by her in her own way as being hybridized, though that was not her word for it at all. They also had a corn variety not well favored she called "Gummy". That one may have, my guess here, been a cross of a Dent and a Sweet Corn that stabilized. I think that one is now lost. It was processed into a travelling food to chew on, and was also still in storage if something happened with the main food supply, which often did happen. Gummy is not at all what Gaspe is. The Hidatsas did not have Gaspe.

Gaspe Flint was grown in Canada by Natives who came to be called Micmacs, especially in the area of a large Penninsula over the Great Lakes area. Early French explorers described seeing HUGE fields of it. This was the Corn that would grow up there.

=====

Seems to sprout like any Corn, same days to germination, typical temperature requirements. When it does sprout, the leaves are very pretty. Darker than some, and nice. I noticed that there is some genetic variation in the early leaves. Some had a homogenous color, and some showed a subtle and healthy striping. Other than that they were the same.

Yet another independent variation I saw was that some plants made several nice tiller plants that also produced and made smaller, extra cobs on them. Those without strong tillers made the biggest, (chuckling...biggest in the world of Gaspe Flint of course!), cobs. Another, also independent variation is, a few made a tiller that made a cob right at the top. I really should have photo'd that. I discovered those 3 or 4 as I was pulling the plants.

Gaspe Flint is a very real Corn, a very real food source. The kernels are a good bright golden yellow. They appear to be floury inside, and don't seem to be a super hard Flint, but more of a floury Flint. That's by appearance. I've seen ornamental "Indian Corn" that looks like there's almost no flour in them. Gaspe's kernels are puffy looking. I actually wonder if they would pop nicely.

They did not quite reach knee high! Not even at the top of the tassles! If someone wants to try, I bet a person could get 12 one gallon pots with good fertile potting soil in them, and get a small crop from 12 little Gaspe Flint Corn plants! If they could grind it, that'd probably be enough for one cornflour recipe, I don't know. How many plants do you think it'd take Thistle, for a single cook up recipe?

In a month the plants are basically full size! That's more like finger tip to elbow! One of SeedCorn's plants could eat a Gaspe Flint Corn plant as a snack I'm sure!

Let's say there was a sudden climate change. It could happen. Bunch of volcanoes or something, and we get, worldwide, 5 years of no summer.

I'm pretty sure, GASPE FLINT CORN could save millions, even BILLIONS of lives. Grown indoors under LED lights in pots, or even in pots taken outside during the days when it is not freezing, brought indoors to warmth.

Even if not anything like that, this little Corn can easily help feed the hungry, or any family who can grind corn.