True Gold Heirloom Sweet Corn

We hope you’ll join us in Adelaide Botanic Garden on 26 October to help plant our City Corn Crop. Make sure you book your place. Spaces are limited, don’t miss out!

Thanks to all who visited our City Crop stall at the Royal Adelaide Show, check out the image gallery on the right for all the information you need to complete your corn poster.

This year’s sweet corn crop will be grown from some very special seeds. Thanks to The Diggers Club our crop will be planted with True Gold, an heirloom variety of sweet corn. There’s a few things that make heirloom seeds different to many of those grown by farmers today.

Heirloom vegetables are older varieties than those we often see in the supermarket. True Gold was grown before the high-yielding varieties which most farmers grow today. Think of heirloom veggies as those your grandparents, or great grandparents, would have grown and eaten.

Another distinct characteristic of heirloom varieties is that they are open pollinated. True Gold uses the wind to move the male pollen onto the female stigma, to develop its yummy corn cobs. You can collect seeds from open pollinated varieties to produce another crop of the same plant. Open pollination is key to the survival of heirlooms.

Hybrid varieties were developed to make producing vegetables on a large scale easier, more profitable and less labour intensive. Many of the fruit and vegetables you see in the supermarket today are hybrids.

Heirloom fruit and veggies can look different to what you might expect and, according to their fans, taste superior to hybrids. You can often find heirloom produce at the farmers market. Next time you see veggies that are different in shape, size or colour why not give them a go.

You never know purple carrots, striped cucumbers or green tomatoes might become your new favourite!

If you can’t get your hands on heirloom veggies in the shop why not grow your own. You can see a large range of heirloom seeds, including True Gold, at The Diggers Shop in Adelaide Botanic Garden. The Diggers Club is Australia’s largest garden club and is passionate about preserving older vegetable varieties.

Happy gardening!