Giant Peruvian Inca Corn Nuts
Cape St. Claire is a bedroom community near Annapolis, Maryland. This spit of land originally occupied by the Piscataway Indians then housed fishermen because it is adjacent to the Little Magothy River, the Magothy River, and Deep Creek, which feed into the Chesapeake Bay. Later it offered inexpensive housing to commuters like me in a woodland setting. When we lived there, the community featured a small beach area, a couple of convenience businesses, and a volunteer fire department that held weekly bingo games.
That first summer, our neighbor planted a variety of vegetables that he bragged about a bit too much for my preference.
Having read about how Squanto befriended the Plymouth pilgrims by introducing them to fish as fertilizer, I figured I would one-up my cocky neighbor the following year. After all, there were plenty of seafood restaurants in Annapolis. When spring arrived, I raided a dumpster finding plenty of fish offal to supplement the sandy loam-like soil in our area. After digging a garden and amending the soil with fish guts, heads, and tails, I purchased Giant Peruvian Inca Corn Nut seeds. I ate corn nuts as a snack. But that’s not why I decided to specialize. It was because images in garden catalogues showed that they grew into towering stalks.
“Giant Peruvian corn is an heirloom corn seed that is indigenous and unique to the Valle Sagrado de los Incas, Quechua. Generally grown in a large-kernel variety of field corn from the Andes, Central America and South America, especially in Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Colombia, it has evolved to become one the largest corn kernel in the world.
“Stalks grow extremely tall, 12 to 18 feet high or even higher, with strong root system for better resistance to wind or drought!”
As Spring turned into another humid summer, my giant corn began to grow à la Jack and the Beanstalk. Simultaneously, biting green bottle flies, midges, sand flies, and swarms of undesirable creepy, crawly, flying, digging bugs invaded my fish-putrefied garden. Succumbing to my spouse’s complaints, I dug up the mess. Unfortunately, my neighbor moved that summer, so I never got the satisfaction of hearing him wonder in awe about my crop.
I learned three things from this experience.
First, Squanto was right. Second, plant well away from one’s home if fresh fish is utilized as a fertilizer. Finally, attempting to one-up another person will be dissatisfying even if the Giant Peruvian Inca Corn Nut stalks top eighteen feet.
