Friday, January 27, 2012

Our first harvest



Today we had a notable achievement at the Farm. For the last couple months we have been working together with North Shore Special Education to offer farm experiences to their students. Their toil produced a reward in the harvest of their first popcorn crop. The ears look a little smaller than what you might be used to seeing. They used a heirloom variety of corn because we needed something smaller for the space we had in the greenhouse. The students will be able to take the corn back to their school and pop it for the class to enjoy. With the growing cycle complete, the story of what it takes to put food on the table will be something these kids will never forget.

Here's a factoid - Popcorn is the oldest type of corn know in the world. In the late 1940's researchers working in New Mexico found a cave that had human artifacts that dated over 3,000 years old. Amongst the tools and other finds was a cache of popcorn kernals. When the the men got back to their offices at Harvard they took a couple of the kernals and put them in hot oil and they actually got it to pop! No report on how it tasted.