Corn

Growing Corn can sometimes be a risk, pending weather and water. But you can grow old varieties of corn that are drought tolerant and heat tolerant. Varieties like Hopi Blue and Anasazi do well in the Southwest. There are many varieties of Indian old world corns that will prosper and because they are open pollination you can save seed and always hopefully have a supply.

Remember when planting corn, that it does like a lot of fertilizer. So one way to help your corn is to plant a cover crop with it. Planting a crop such as red clover will help fix nitrogen to the soil and keeping the corn from stripping out the nitrogen out of the soil. This will also help keep your soil going as green manure later and or after harvest let the goats and cows in for a field treat.

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Also remember, after you have harvested and dried your corn, when preparing it to soak it in some lye or fire place ash before you cook it! IF you dont you will not release the wonderful nutrition that is in the corn. The Spanish learned this the hard way before almost starving to death. The Indians knew to add some fireplace ash while preparing their dried corn, whether or not they understood why is another thing. The lye unlocks corns nutrition making it available for digestion.

Here is some reading on it.
 
http://www.mayadiscovery.com/ing/history/corn.htm 

http://givemetheinfo.com/prepping-food-storage/uncategorized/making-lye-water-for-treating-corn/

http://www.tuscaroras.com/pages/history/cornsoup_recipe.html


http://www.preparedsociety.com/forum/f36/how-make-hominy-field-corn-8557/


http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_people_eat_feed_corn

http://www.howtomakehominyfromcorn.com/hominy-made-using-lye.html

http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=46799

Remember ,, use old world corn varieties, use lye, learn HOW to lye your corn and you will be living pretty well!!