The Cherokee Squaw Corn I'm growing has some variation in the size of kernels, though all are much larger and flatter than say, the corn one gets at the feed store. I'd say that it behaves a lot like flour corn when being ground. I'm pleased with how easy it is to shell and grind. After working with it, the contrast with Mesquakie is very noticeable. Mesquakie Indian corn has a lot more flint-like qualities. It even pops (poorly) when parched in the oven. When we lived in Hidalgo, Mexico my favorite corn for meal and grits was the really large kernel flour corn which one sometimes sees up here, sold as corn nuts. It came in either red or white. In Mexico they make it into hominy and use the kernels in a soup called Pozole. This flour corn was extremely easy to grind and we enjoyed it, both for grits and corn meal. So, I wouldn't want to discourage anyone from trying a flour corn. They are very nice. As an aside, let me tell you an anecdote on our life in Mexico. The first two years was characterized by frustration and hardship. We were grappling with the language and also with the environment. Our family suffered a good many illnesses until we adjusted to the new environment. After two years we were fluent. So the language problem was much relieved. Every six months to a year we'd go to Texas, for car parts and supplies, etc. While there, we'd stock up on some things we couldn't get in Mexico. Two items on our list were always grits and cornmeal. Mexico is the land of corn. But they hardly use cornmeal as we know it and grits are unheard of. So, we'd stock up and then ration until the next border trip. After 5 or 6 years in Mexico, I got to thinking about our love of these two items and the fact that we were surrounded by corn! That's how we learned to grind our own. We experimented! Suddenly we didn't need to ration these items! I often thought that this was taking adaptation to a new level! Blueflint, I'm going to try that recipe. It looks good! George

I grew oodles of corns in 2008 and 2009, and actually just ground it all up in October and November -- it sat in the basement in storage for all that time. I ended up with over a hundred pounds of corn meal, of various colors. I tried flour corns (actually, my favorite in terms of ease of grinding), dent corns (most productive), flint corns (not for grinding again, too hard! but pretty for decorative use), and even waxy corn (via someone in North Carolina who got seeds from China). I think my single most productive variety was Northstine Dent --- its a northern Michigan heirloom with fairly short plants (5-6 feet), and about 7 inch ears with yellow kernels. Hopi Blue Dent was probably the most productive blue. Earthtones Dent and Oaxacan Green were both productive, but the cornmeal is kind of ugly, yielding a strangely colored cornbread (kind of looks like dryer lint, but tastes fine). Painted Mountain was just OK in terms of production, IMO. Alas, my dry corn crop this year was an abject failure. The stupid squirrels striped every ear of my dry corns, from several hundred feet of row. There was NO walnut or acorn crop here, and I guess they were desperate for food, but partially my fault because I got lazy and was NOT good about getting them trapped, I just had too many other things to do. It did serve one purpose, they stayed out of my sweet corn and went for the dry corn varieties in the other garden closer to the trees. Hopefully next year will be better.

Hi Mike: Glad to hear from you, I'm too lazy to spray. Fifteen years ago, a neighbor saw me spraying roses with chemicals and told me, "why do you even bother growing roses with all these spraying?" Roses become unpopular when people associate roses with spraying. It's already a nuisance to spray my moldy shower stall with bleach/water solution. The pics I posted are FRESHLY dusted roses BEFORE another 20+ hours of rain. Today the rain washed most of the corn meal away, and the leaves are 100% green and healthy. My 10 Austins keep ALL their leaves green. I went and check the neighbors' disease-resitant roses, like Living Easy, and some single-petal species. They look horrible with yellow leaves after 5 days of constant rain, and no sun. It looks better dusting roses with corn meal using a flour sifter, and much faster than messy spray. My pics look bad because I threw corn meal by hand. The best thing about dusting with corn meal is the prevention of pathogenic fungi from germinating through the winter and inflicting more damage in the spring. It takes 10 days for the beneficial Trichoderma fungi to germinate from corn meal, and to suppress pathogenic fungi. I dusted August 1, September 1, September 17 (after 25+ hours of rain), and when I took the above posted pictures (Wed, Sept.28), after 3 days of rain. I finally see the sun this morning, Friday, Sept.30, after 5 days of constant rain.

With all the rain in the Northeast this year, my slug population was causing quite a problem in my garden. I read that feed grade cornmeal was good for killing slugs because as they are attracted to the cornmeal itself, they scrape themselves causing terminal damage. I went to the local Blue Seal shop, picked up a bag and tried it out around a number of my plants and then waited to see what would happen. Though I have not seen the slugs dying (maybe they head off and slowly die?), it has done a couple of other wonderful things. First, the slugs are so attracted to the cornmeal that they are leaving my plants alone. Second, it has made them extremely easy to catch; each night I head out to the garden with a cup of salt, a flashlight and a pair of chopsticks and pick them right off the cornmeal ring. I have already noticed healthier plants and a reduction in the slug catch each evening.