Harvesting Broom Corn
If you’re looking for something easy and interesting to grow in the garden next year, consider broom corn - the distant sweet corn relative once widely grown as a housekeeper's helper.
Native to Central Africa, broom corn, Sorghum vulgare, a variety of sorghum in the plant family Poaceae, is a plant with a variety of uses, both functional and ornamental. This hardy annual, also known as broom straw, is a tall grass that forms broad, tasseled, fan-shaped heads, ranging from 16 to 20 inches long. This year, we grew some broom in one corner of my vegetable garden. And last month, it was harvested, hung to dry, and then brought indoors as a pretty fall arrangement.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
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- Broom corn is easy to grow and only requires a bright and sunny open location with lots of nutrient-rich, well-drained soil. Broom corn reaches 10 to 18 feet at maturity, depending on the variety.
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- The tops grow in fan-shaped blooms. This corn does not have ears filled with kernels. Instead it grows tassels at the very top. These long tassels are what broom makers use to make brooms.
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- The leaves are also long and papery just like a cornstalk.
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- Ryan begins to cut off some of the long stalks. Broom corn is typically ready for harvesting when the plant has developed the ideal tassel or “brush”.
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- Look at all these pretty autumn colored tassels. Demand for these brooms has decreased over the years because the broom making process is so tedious – it takes one ton of broom corn to produce about 80 to 100 brooms.
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- Here, one can see how long the broom corn has grown. Ryan takes the stalks to the greenhouse where they will be prepared for curing.
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- Ryan begins to clean and shorten the stalks at the first leaf.
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- And peels all the lower outer leaves off the stalks. There are about eight to 15 nodes and leaves on each one.
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- Now these stalks are smooth and clear of all the lower leaves – these stalks look similar to bamboo.
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- Ryan trims all the stalks to the same length.
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- Here is a closer look at the broom corn stalks – they are very woody with dry piths inside.
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- Next, Ryan and Gavin bring the bundles of broom corn to the corn crib where they could dry undisturbed for the next two to three weeks.
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- Ryan and Gavin hang the broom corn in smaller bundles, so it could dry vertically and straight.
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- My corn crib is original to the farm, and is one of the most photographed outbuildings on the property. It is located at one end of my party lawn next to one of my horse paddocks and this long allee of lindens.
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- A few weeks later, Ryan returns to the corn crib – the broom corn is now dry.
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- When making brooms, these sprays are brushed with a curry comb to remove all the seeds. If left unharvested, the seeds can be used as a winter food source for wildlife – birds love them.
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- Benjamin Franklin is credited with introducing broom corn to the United States in the early 1700s. Initially, broom corn was grown only as a garden crop for use in the home. By 1834 commercial broom corn production had spread to several states in the Northeast and started moving west. Now, broom corn is grown for more ornamental uses and as feed.
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- Any discarded stalks are brought to the compost pile using my sturdy extra-large Multipurpose Garden Totes from QVC. We use these bags everywhere around the farm – they are so useful for so many tasks.
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- All the broom corn is gathered together and brought to my Winter House for decoration.
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- It makes a very pretty autumn bouquet for my servery – and all of it grown right here at the farm. Have you ever grown broom corn? Let me know what you think about this interesting crop in the comments section below.
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