Clayfield Farm

Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Folks who have lived in East Blue Hill, Maine for a while remember John McGraw who lived on the Jay Carter Road.  John was a consummate gardener.  His garden was quite large and had an unusual soil profile of clay over sand.  This made for a productive garden with the fertility of clay and the drainage of sand.  When John, in his later years, got too tottery to keep up with the hard work that a garden demands, Deborah and I helped him out with the weeding and the harvesting.  When John finally had to give up gardening altogether he offered his entire garden space to us.  That became our cornfield.

For several years we grew corn there and it was during that time that I discovered Mariah sweet corn.  John said it was the best sweet corn he'd ever tried in his whole life.  I had to agree with him.  A number of other people said the same thing. Pretty soon I was growing nothing but Mariah.  But then the seed company, in all its wisdom, decided to discontinue that variety.  It was a sad day for the corn lovers of East Blue Hill.

I was determined to find a worthy replacement so I tried Trinity and Bodacious and Argent.  I tried Honey Select and Sugar Buns and Spring Treat.  I tried Incredible and Luscious and even one called Kandy Korn. This went on for a dozen years. Nothing came close.  Then one day I had dinner at John Bunker's house in Palermo.  He served fresh sweet corn.  With the first bite I knew I had found what I was looking for.  John had bought the corn from a roadside stand and was able to give me the phone number of the farmer.  His name was Bruce Potter and Bruce and I ended up talking nothing but corn for about a half hour.  He said the variety was Mirai.  What!  Did you mean to say Mariah?  No.  Mirai.  

That was five years ago and now I grow nothing but Mirai. 

Having led you this far with the story, I now have to say that 2014 was a terrible summer for corn.  Corn hates to have it's roots disturbed and in mid July a big East wind came along and blew the corn down.  I drove stakes in and strung clothesline and propped up as much as I could.  And then another big wind came, this time out of the West, and blew the corn down again. The vast majority of corn stalks continued to grow but never produced ears.  And then we had a cool summer.  I was still waiting for the 95º temperatures that corn likes so much when the season turned and we started the long slide into Fall.

But to make a long story short, the Mirai finally matured this week and I was able to salvage about fifty good sized ears.  The good thing about how late the corn came in is that there is virtually no insect damage.  The ears are perfect and the taste is sublime.  I can just about guarantee that this will be the best corn you have had all summer.  No, wait.  I can do better than that. I will guarantee that this will be the best corn of the summer or your money back with a smile.   Mirai Sweet Corn    $.75 an ear