Farming Advice: Cooking Sweetcorn, Repelling Pet Pests and a Sunflower Playhouse

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Illustration by the MOTHER EARTH NEWS staff
Farming advice from MOTHER, including planting a sunflower playhouse for children.

MOTHER EARTH NEWS readers share their farming advice, fun tips and country folklore, including repelling pet pests, planting a sunflower playhouse and cooking sweetcorn ears.

Farming Advice: Cooking Sweetcorn, Repelling Pet Pests and a Sunflower Playhouse


Seems there’s always some sweet corn left on the stalks in the garden at summer’s end . . . tough old ears that are no good for boiling or canning. Most people just plow ’em under, but Lucinda Dittmar of LaPorte, Indiana saves every one and uses the kernels to add variety to her family’s winter diet.

First, Mrs. Dittmar strips those late-season ears from the stalks and husks them in her back yard. Then, after it has dried for a few days, the corn is shelled and ground in a small grist mill. “Those kernels make the sweetest, nuttiest cornmeal I’ve ever tasted,” says Lucinda. “The flavor of the hot mush and corn bread I whip up with this home-ground meal far surpasses the bland, sandy taste of foods made with the store bought variety.”

  • Published on Jul 1, 1978
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