Description

Corn Fireside (pop)
Zea mays

Very early popcorn. Plant height 1.20 metres. Ears 10 to 14 cm long with red or yellow grains. A rare variety that has been preserved by Sandhill Preservation Center, Iowa, since the 1980s. 98 days to maturity.

Full sun, well drained and rich soil. Direct sowing after any risk of frost. Or sow indoors 1 to 3 weeks before. 2.5 cm deep. 30 cm between plants.

Germination: 95% in December 2025
Ecological seeds produced at Catherine’s Ornamental Garden.

Note
We wanted to offer you an early corn that ‘popped’ well. We also wanted it to flower at the same time or before New Mama, so that you can grow both without it being too complicated to avoid cross-breeding in your garden. And if we were to spend energy to produce it ourselves, ideally it should be a variety that’s not readily available. So it was with these criteria in mind that we looked at the ‘corn’ section of dozens of seed companies’ websites.

On June 1st, 2022, we sowed New Mama and 7 varieties of popcorn in our trial garden. Some were eliminated because they didn’t have time to mature, others because they didn’t produce anything. We chose Fireside popcorn because it met all our criteria. As an added bonus, it looks good, tastes good and has a great-sounding name!

It’s a variety that seems to have been completely forgotten. Developed by Elwyn Meader in the ’60s, it was found by curator Glenn Drowns of Sandhill Preservation Center, Iowa, who obtained it from a Kelowna, British Columbia gardener in the 1980s. No mention of this corn anywhere on the web, he was the only one holding the variety. Maybe the only one in 40 years, we don’t know.

We’d like to thank him for his colossal conservation work, and for his support in helping us make this forgotten variety available again in Canada.