Broomcorn Processing

This summer I was lucky to be able to attend a few Folk School classes at Historic Cold Spring Village which is just about 2 miles down the road.  It was a new program for the Village and I tried to take full advantage of it.  The first class I participated in was book making.  I got to make 3 small projects the first class and was invited to start a more complicated book the following week.  I will write that up separately... The second class was on broom making!  It was fantastic.  I had a wonderful instructor and was taught how to make a whisk broom and a cob-webber.

My awesome instructor and a hen supervisor.

I was very proud of my two brooms and immediately thought of my friends over at No Frills Farm - they groom BROOMCORN!  I got home and messaged the farmer there, Charles, to ask if he was growing any this year.  He was!  What luck!  So I told him I'd like to place an order for as much as I can get, maybe 100 pieces.  When the fall came and they began harvesting, I reminded him of my order and volunteered to help harvest what I needed.  One Sunday morning I drove to the farm and we headed out to the back field to clip away.  I came home with almost 200 pieces!  I was super excited.  Then the realization that I had to take all the seeds
off sank in.  That was an awful lot of seed.

Broomcorn awaiting processing.

A few quick searches on the internet and I had devised a plan.  I gathered up my materials - a nice big plastic bin for catching the seeds and two combs, left over from my pony showing days - mane combs!  After setting myself up, I decided to video it.

  

Deseeding the broomcorn.

All deseeded.

I finished up the other two colors of broomcorn today. I just used the metal pulling comb, as it is more efficient.  Now I am letting them dry out a bit before I begin practicing! Don't worry!  I will be documenting the entire process.



A little broomcorn fact for you: Broomcorn is not actually corn!  It is a type of sorghum, Sorghum vulgare var. technicum, that produces long fibrous seed branches, making it a perfect choice for making brooms.  For further information on broomcorn, check out Purdue University's horticulture page on broomcorn here.