**I LOVE plants that can be neglected and still thrive well!**

**GROWN ON OUR FARM HERE IN TENNESSEE**

**GIANT RAINBOW ORNAMENTAL COLORED CORN**

95 days [heirloom] Beautiful, multicolored, huge ears (up to 15" long!) from strong 12-18' stalks. Some all-glass and all-blues/reds ears along with an array of purples, whites, and painted oranges/yellow/black kernels......Immensely productive, drought tolerant, hardy dent corn that's good for sweet ears and gorgeous, delicious cornmeal.
Corn, indigenous to the Americas, is one of its oldest vegetables. Rainbow corn is one of the oldest varieties. The Pueblo tribe in the Southwestern United States was using it at least as far back as 1540, when Spanish explorers discovered the region. But this type of corn certainly goes back to the pre-Colombian era.
Rainbow corn is open-pollinated, It is a floury corn, and has about 30 percent more protein than the average hybrid corn. It is still widely used in the Southwest and Mexico, where it is a staple food. It can be used to make tortillas, chaquegue, a type of gruel, and nixtamal, which is a type of hominy. Rainbow corn was also reputed to have healing properties when offered as a beverage.
Nixtamal is made of corn kernels that have had their hulls removed in a lime water. The result may be cooked into hominy or ground into masa flour, suitable for tamale dough and many other uses in that cuisine. Atole de maiz is a beverage made of ground corn with add-ins like chocolate or chiles.
Height:
12'-18' ft.
Seed Collecting:
Allow seedheads to dry on plants; remove and collect seeds
Properly cleaned, seed can be successfully stored
.#1297