Growing Giant Peruvian Corn

 We grew giant Peruvian corn for 5 years in a row until this past growing season we decided to stop growing it.
Keep reading to find out about the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly about growing giant Peruvian corn.

The giant Peruvian corn stalk easily grow up to 20 to 24 feet which is 6.09 to 7.31 meters. They grow super quickly too. The stalks become so thick they almost look like small trees and the good thing is that the stalks can be used the next season to make trellises for beans and whatnot as long as they are kept in a dry spot in wintertime.

Here are some pictures of the corn:

Impressive for sure. Visitors loved it and we always got a lot of oohs and aahs but you know what we didn't get? Corn! That's right, we never had any corn to speak of except last year, but it wasn't pretty. The ears would grow big and thick. They too were impressive, but something always went wrong. Critters and birds got away with them and they didn't want to share with us, or the season wasn't long enough for the ears to mature, you name it, it happened. 

The corn would sometimes fall over in a storm. Due to the huge stalks, they caught a good amount of wind. A decent storm would knock them over.
This past year I had started the corn inside the greenhouse. As they say, by the 4th of July the corn should be knee high. Mine was well above my head by the 4th of July. So here we thought we would eat some giant Peruvian corn at last, and we did. It was tough, bland, and chewy, we had left it on the stalks for too long but who knew. These ears took longer to mature than regular corn, and we were inexperienced. This is when we decided to stop growing this kind of corn. For stalks to get this tall, it takes a lot of nutrients out of the soil.

I miss seeing those giants but it's for the better.