Purple Peliti - Sweetcorn

Zea Mays

Story: These seeds were brought to us by Randa Toko and are originally from the Peliti seed festival in the Rhodope mountains in Greece. We first grew it out in 2022. It is unusual in that it is a coloured sweet corn (most colourful corns are grain corn). This is a really beautiful species with colours ranging from deep burgundy/red to blueish purple with white flecks and kernels dotted around. 

Sow: April – June  indoors. After last frost

Requirements: nutrient-rich soil, regular watering, and a lot of sun.

When to harvest for food: For eating, pick fruits as they ripen from July onwards

When to harvest for seed saving: Towards the end of summer/early autumn when the corn silks have completely dried on the plant, preferably

Seed contributors: Omved Gardens

Isolation Needed: Yes

Saving Seed: Sweetcorn must be isolated at a distance of 500m from other corn varieties to prevent cross pollination. It would work well in a large fenced garden (fences and hedges make a wind barrier; corn is wind pollinated so less distance is needed when a barrier is in place) If they can be grown in a polytunnel, even better! Corn is wind pollinated and  cross-pollinates easily so ideally only this variety of corn is grown in an area.

Number of plants to save seeds from: Minimum to save seed from is 20 healthy plants. Ideally 80 plants! We only send out 30 or so seeds to our members, so if you know that you definitely want to save seed from this please send us an email and we'll happily send you more. 

Pollination: Wind pollinated

How to send seed back: Please label all seed with variety, type, date and your contact. If you didn't get a chance to fill out our online data collection form, you can also send us a few lines about how it grew for you/flavour etc. Please aim to send back 1/2 cup of dried seed or more so that we can continue to share with network members.Send to: The Seed Saving Network, Omved Gardens, 1 Townsend Yard, N6 5JF.

Please remember, if you’re an individual grower you can order up to 4 packets of seeds. If you order more than this, you will receive just four packs to begin with. This is to ensure we get plenty of data in return and to keep our stocks sustainable for years to come.* 

*Community groups and Experienced Growers can order larger quantities, please email us if this is the case.

If an item is out of stock we will send a close alternative.