The Homestead Hobbyist

No, no, not Mary Jane--I've had this discussion before. While walking down Ontario Street, behind Adam's Morgan and north of Dupont, I saw the most wondrous lawn full of one of the most-eaten grasses: corn! True grasses belong to the Poaceae family, as Zea mays does. I have not been much of a fan of grasses--when I owned a townhouse, I kept talking of ripping up the yard and putting rocks in, just because I hate grass. But turf grass is different from the thousands of other species of grasses out there; I may have been unnecessarily dismissive. I have been enjoying the corn that my farmer brought me last week and last night, and, y'know, wheat, rice, barley--all these things are wonderful grasses, too!

Because grasses really do do a lot of things--and seeing nontraditional grass lawns makes me smile! Growing a monoculture is difficult enough, but if you do, at least what you're growing can feed you. These stalks of corn have some promising developments on them. Just from the sidewalk, I could see a few dozen mid-sized ears of corn. And there are enough stalks that those pruning/harvesting bandits probably won't get everything, so the homeowner will get to eat the fruits of his/her labours! (By the way, a corn cob has hundred and hundreds of fruits--each kernel is a fruit! I love confusing food.)