Sweet Corn

Here in the Heartland, the color of August is yellow

Glads from the garden,

yellow roses

prim roses

But the yellow we wait with breathless anticipation for is the yellow of 

corn on the cob!

This golden beauty comes from emerald fields

This is actually a picture of field corn, different from sweet corn. It's bigger and takes up mile after mile of heartland fields

Corn shouldn't be confused with our other emerald treasure

soybeans! See the corn in the background? The bean field is in the foreground of this picture.  Beans are much shorter than corn. I spent many, many days and weeks "walking beans" when we walked each row of a bean field and hand weeded.  The rows on our farm were often a half-mile or more long. Day after hot day in June we walked the fields. Today bean genetics and weed killers have both evolved so that almost no one "walks beans" anymore. But teenagers still walk the rows of corn detasseling.

This is what a corn tassel looks like.  Seed corn companies pay armies of teenagers to walk their fields every July, pulling the tassels out of the "female" rows of corn out so that the "male"corn pollinates the "female" corn, making new seed corn with the right genetics.

Most Heartlanders of a certain age (mine) first paid job was detasseling corn.  It was hot, dirty work walking down these narrow rows of corn with their razor sharp leaves.

Here's an ear of corn in the field.

And here's an ear on the plate, with my other favorite yellow thing....butter!

Before

After!

Hope you're enjoying your August and whatever color you associate with August!

Hugs xx00