Growing a Broom, part 1

For seven years, I've fantasized about making a broom, and it looks like I might finally be doing it!

I sowed "Hungarian Black Seeded Broom Corn" seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in May.  I've mentioned SESE before.  The beautiful thing about planting heirloom variety plants is that you can save the seeds to start another generation next year.  Of course, this is the way nature usually does things, but with our modern hybrids, the seeds do not contain the genetic information of the parent.  You cannot, for instance, plant a typical apple from the grocery store and expect the fruits of its seed to resemble the apple you selected from the produce section.  But non-hybrid, non-GMO varieties reproduce again, year after year.  We have seed savers of the past to thank for not giving up and letting the old varieties die out.  Southern Exposure is a great collectively owned business that is keeping up this tradition today.

I had little idea what to expect of the seed, never having seen a broom corn plant before.  "Broom corn" is a little of a colloquial name.  The plant does resemble maize-corn in some ways, but it is actually a kind of sorghum.  A spray of pliable fibers carrying seeds crowns the mature plant, and these fibers emerged as our standard broom bristles around the turn of the nineteenth century.  This is a black seeded variety; Southern Exposure sells two other varieties, a red seeded and a rainbow seeded.

Weeds too!

I had access to a small plot of land that had already been tilled and harrowed.  Since I wasn't going to be driving any farm equipment between rows, I figured exact row spacing was not necessary, but I aimed for around three feet of spacing.  I sowed the seeds about 1/4 inch deep and four inches apart (May 30).  I made sure they got water.  And they came up!

I used a scuffle hoe between the rows to keep weeds down.  When the plants were a few inches high, I thinned them to a one foot spacing and started to hoe between plants as well.  Now look at them!  About three feet tall, they are bigger than I am when seated.  I've done some gardening before, but this is my first gardening attempt that is "all mine."  I am pleased with the progress!  Fingers crossed that these babies will continue doing well!