Posted By FarmerJ on August 28, 2010

Whew!  We’ve made it through the sweet corn season!  Actually, our sweet corn season has been over for almost three weeks ~ I’m just now getting around to catching up.  This year proved to be successful in more ways than one: we didn’t have 8,000 ears of corn needing picked at the same time; we were able to put up three times the corn we put up last year; we were able to help feed the hungry; and, we learned a few more things we’re going to do differently next year.

We had ears coming due about every ten days from the second week in July through the first week in August.  Darling Husbie and I engineered a system that made the picking process go fairly quickly.  Really, it was pretty slick, if I may say so.  It was the processing that had a tendency to consume all time and space for awhile.  But, by the fourth rendition, I had a pretty good assembly line figured out.  As long as Darling Husbie and Big Little Brother steered clear of everything beyond the refrigerator; as long as the Beagle mutt didn’t sprawl out for her nap in my path from the sink to the stove; as long as the Toy Fox Terrorist didn’t shove dead stuffed weasels, skunks and badgers under my feet; and, as long as the finicky feline didn’t tug on my apron strings, I could get 120 ears shucked, washed, blanched, cut off the cob, bagged, labeled and in the freezer ~ and the mess cleaned up ~ in just under ten hours.  [I was blessed to have my Buddy with me during one rendition, and we were able to get the process down to about six hours!  She has an equal amount of OCD in her bones, so she fit right into the assembly line rhythm.]

The first section ready to pick was Ambrosia.  This was our first planting of Ambrosia, and I think it’s safe to say Ambrosia will be the only variety we plant from now on, as we think it is far superior to the Incredible.  I am convinced this is God’s prize creation when it comes to sweet corn!  Yowza!  Anyway, this is four dozen ears of pure sweetness standing in waiting for the assembly line.  It’s shucked [Really?!] and ready for washing.  [Okay, am I the only one who gets sarcastic with herself?]  There are six dozen in the line ahead of them.

Surprise!  More corn…those luscious ears on the plate have been washed and are ready to move to the blanching process.  You see, I’d take it from the basket, wash it, and stack it on the plate.  Exciting stuff, I know.

Now we’ve moved over to the stove.  Is that not the most gorgeous pile of sweetness you’ve ever seen?!

Here we are a blanchin’ ~ eight ears and eleven minutes at a time.  Umpf.  Yes, that is my big water bath canner, too.  You just have to be careful about overcrowding the ears in the pot, as you want to make sure they get blanched evenly.  Now you know why it takes hours to process 120 ears!

After the blanching, we move to the cooling and drying stage.  From the pot of boiling water, the ears went into a sink of ice water for eleven minutes.  From there, they went onto the towel to dry.  I had two timers going, and by the time one batch was finished blanching, the other batch was ready to dry, which made the sink available for the batch that was finished blanching.  The batch that was drying was ready to be bagged and labeled, which made the towel available for the batch that was cooled.

I decided to freeze this batch on the cob.  Six ears fit perfectly in a gallon-size freezer bag.  I couldn’t stop myself from becoming giddy over the thought of how delicious fresh corn-on-the-cob is going to taste during our next blizzard!

About 48 ears into the process, I had a real rhythm to my madness.  Wash, blanch, cool, dry, bag, label ~ wash, blanch, cool, dry, bag, label.  You can see, though, why my choreographed chaos had no room for bumping into boys, side-stepping around sprawled out Beagle mutts, trip-toeing over dead stuffed varmints that have had the life shaken out of them by the vicious Toy Fox Terrorist, and being weighted down by a feline dangling from an apron string.

The other three renditions included cutting the corn from the cob.  As much as we enjoy gnarling on the cob, and as much as I appreciated how much quicker the process was not having to cut the kernels off, there just isn’t enough freezer space for 360 ears of corn in the ol’ barn house!  So, we have the 120 ears on the cob, and the remaining 240 ears are frozen flat in 2-cup servings.  Yum!

When all was said and done ~ when all the splattered corn milk was washed off the windows and walls, and all the fallen kernels were lapped up by two eager canine tongues ~ we had quite the bountiful harvest.  The OCD in my bones made it nearly impossible not to count each and every ear we picked.  I tried, but after the first 1,533 ears, common sense finally…slowly…painstakingly…won over.  With the grass growing at 2.7 inches per hour, and the weeds growing at a rate thirteen times that, and the beans needing to be picked, and the Gretel eggplants ~ oh, those crazy Gretel eggplants ~ and on and on, I just didn’t have time to be standing still counting ears of corn.

So, based on our fine-tuned, calculated guesstimate, we harvested somewhere right around 8,000 ears of pure sweetness.  Of that, we put 360 ears into our own freezer; we shared close to 1,500 ears with specific friends and neighbors; nearly 3,000 ears went to fellow soldiers and their families; and, nearly another 3,000 ears went to our local Salvation Army for their hot meal program, which feeds just over 200 people breakfast and dinner Monday through Friday, and Hope Harbor, which currently houses about 30 individuals.  Oh, and there was the two dozen my Buddy carted back to Arizona in her duffel bag, leaving all of her clothing behind so she could fill her bag with fresh produce instead!  And, of course, the several dozen we’ve had the pleasure of consuming.

Yes, indeed, there is so much to savor from the sweet corn ~ bountiful blessings abound!  Praise God!  ♥

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