White Meadows Farms

The End of an Era

In the summer of 2008, with the slump in the local juice grape market, we made the very difficult decision to rip out our 50 year old Concord and Niagara grape vines. Over the course of 8 weeks we cut vines, pulled posts, wound wire, dug out roots and worked up the soil of three separate vineyards. Two of these vineyards were joined into there neighboring fields to make one large field, but the third 2.5 acre vineyard was in the corner of the farm and was much to small to join our conventional farming operation.

The Beginning of a new Era

During this same time White Meadows had just started visiting some local farmers' markets to serve up our ever so popular Maple Kettle Corn. This new venture was a great hit and locals could not seem to get enough of this great treat. The question was raised on numerous occasions "Where is the popcorn from?" and to our great dismay we had to answer "not from around here, the only place we can purchase large quantities of popping corn is from the U.S.A." The more this question was asked the more we started thinking, "Well why don't we just grow our own?"

With a great idea of growing our own popping corn and with the perfect sized field ready for a new crop, we started doing some research. As it turns out, popcorn is quite a bit different then the other crops we grow on the farm. The biggest hurtle was it needs a much longer growing season then our traditional corn, which means if we could not plant it in time the corn would not mature before the first frost in the fall and the crop would be destroyed. The second big problem was finding seed suitable for our end product, Maple Kettle Corn.

Our Little Experiment

In the end (or more like the beginning) the seed was found and delivered and in the spring of 2009 our very first field of popping corn was planted in time...sort of. The summer of 2009 proved to be challenging. Corn thrives in the heat of summer and for the most part that summer was anything but hot. Day after day of wet, cool weather slowed the growth of our little experiment and as August came to a close our popcorn was far from being ready for harvest.

As September began, so did summer (better late then never) and with the heat finally upon us our now 9 foot corn plants raced to maturity. On October 19, 2009 we began to harvest our very first crop of popping corn. Then the real work started, with the very wet summer a lot of the corn cobs went mouldy, not that great for making Maple Kettle Corn with. So every cob had to be visually inspected before putting into our grain bin to be dried. Now if you have ever seen how much corn is in 2 and a half acres you'll know its a lot. Approximately 140,000 cobs were inspected, a third of which ended up being fed to our cattle (un-popped of course).

After 2 weeks of drying in the bin, the great task of shelling the popcorn kernels took place. Luckily there is a machine to do this job, but the 5 tonnes of corn cobs still had to be shovelled out of the grain bin by hand. Then shipped off to be cleaned over the Christmas holidays.

On February 7, 2010, a year and a half after the great idea had been put into motion, the very first batch of Maple Kettle Corn, made with our very own popcorn (and maple syrup), was popped. Wow, what a journey.

Visit How to pop Popping Corn to learn more.