How to Grow Your Own Popcorn Plant

Clint Thompson Environment, Pollinators, Soil

Cathy Isom

Today, Cathy Isom provides information of how you can grow your own popcorn plant.

Homegrown popcorn is delicious with unique flavors that will lead to this being a permanent addition to your garden. You might not realize that there are many different types of corn. You can grow sweet corn, pod corn, flour corn, and popcorn. And there are many colors of popcorn you can grow, such as Mini Blue, this variety produces dark blue kernels that mature in 100 days, and the stalks reach 6 feet tall. There’s also Mini Pink, Ruby Red, Strawberry, and Tom Thumb: this variety produces the classic yellow kernel you expect from popcorn and takes 84 days to mature. These stalks only reach 3 feet tall. Popcorn is different from the corn on the cob that you might eat for dinner thanks to its explosive nature when exposed to high temperatures. Even though corn plants yield about the same amount, popcorn stores for much longer, so you can keep it around a long time. 

To grow a bountiful harvest of popcorn, you need to plant the seeds in fertile, well-draining soil. Popcorn needs full sunlight in most circumstances. Also, you cannot grow popcorn and sweet corn in the same garden. Due to pollination, the quality of sweet corn can be reduced. You might even find that your sweet corn becomes inedible and takes on characteristics of the popcorn, such as kernels being miscolored.

Also, select a location with easy access to irrigation or water. Popcorn, like other varieties of corn, requires a lot of water during the growing season. You don’t want to struggle to keep the plants watered.