Unfortunately, yes. ;) Made them up for Mom when we were kids and kept one in the outhouse to knock down the wasp nests. They also work well for beating rugs.

It is a handmade sweeping broom made out of {{gwi:1354343}}.

2 big fistfulls of broomcorn laid alongside of a good stout branch cut to length. About 4" down on the stems you wrap and tie a thin strip of rawhide, wet it down and let it dry. Thresh the broom against the side of the outhouse to remove most of the corn seeds and then use it to sweep the floor - or beat the tomatoes. ;)

Dave

Okay Dave, your right. Now does anyone know what broom corn is?

Ted

I'm trying to make these real links....

You can buy seed from SSE:
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=933

It's tall stuff:
http://www.highhopesgardens.com/Blogphotos/broomcorn.jpg

A history of broom corn brooms:
http://www.broomshop.com/history/

Modern whisk broom made from broom corn:
http://www.hensonbrooms.com/photos/large/brooms/Whisk_Broom.jpg

Sure I know what a broom corn broom is b'c I was raised in a Shaker built home and in the same area where Mother Ann Lee started the first large Shaker settlement and the Shakers were well known for their brooms made from Broom corn and raised acres and acres of it on the flats near the Mohawk River.

I did an 1850's reproduction garden for the Shaker Historical Society and we used the broom corn I planted for a demonstration on how to make such brooms.

Broom corn is in the genus and species Sorghum bicolor. There are three different kinds of Sorghum;Grain, sweet ( sugar cane) and broom.

Many places list Broom Corn and Glenn Drowns at Sandhill Preservation also lists several different broom corns. You can get different varieties that can be used for regular sized brooms down to small whisk brooms based on the length of the seed bearing structures.

And yes, still today there are some folks who go out there with a broom and whack away at their tomato plants. LOL

Carolyn

When I was a kid, maybe fifteen years old; I would drive a truck from the Texas panhandle to Grand Junction, Colorado. I would go to various fruit orchards and purchase loads of the best plums, pears, and other fruit on earth to haul home and sell. On the way up and back I would notice huge fields of really tall stuff that looked like corn, but wasn't corn. I stopped one day and asked a farmer what he was growing. When he said "broom corn". I asked "how do you eat it". He laughed and said you don't eat it, you make brooms out of it. And thus was my introduction to broom corn.

Ted

Carolyn,

When an old timer says "there ain't nothing better than hot biscuits with a little butter and sorghum syrup in the morning", is he talking about syrup made from the sap of the grain sorghum or sugar cane (which would make it molasses)?

Slightly off topic, but I don't care?

Ted

Finally a little humor!

I want to know if you really have to beat the tomatoes to get them to pollinate or if shaking them will do!

nhsuzanne,

Mine are growing in large cages. I would simply break a broom on the cages if I tried. Shaking the cages vigorously seems to do it for me. I never observed more than a few bloom drops until the real heat hit Texas last week. Now they are dropping more than they set.

No you don't have to hit them with a broom and you don't even have to shake the cages....unless it makes you feel better to do so. ;)

95% of tomato blooms pollinate themselves just fine IF and WHEN the existing conditions allow.

Dave

I know what broomcorn is. I grew up in what was (at the time, don't know if it still is) one of the leading broomcorn producing states, Texas. My father farmed sugar cane, sorgum and broomcorn, in addition to cotton, millet, hay, pecans and watermelon. Like sorgum, broomcorn grain can be used as livestock feed.

I remember my grandmother and great grandmother using broomcorn brooms. I don't remember there ever being one in our house though, but I think there was usually one in the barn.

(Granma) Bets

I don't know anything about shaking tomato plants to get the to pollinate. I do know that you can tug at the plant to get green tomatoes to ripen faster when the end of the season is near.

Okay Shirley! I feel like my leg may be getting tugged a little with that one. If not, I have to be honest and say I have never heard of it. I'm not saying it doesn't work, only that I've never heard of it. I find it interesting. Got any more? :)

Ted

Ted, the link below should answer your question about Sorghum Syrup. I wasn't too sure how it differed from molasses, so did a Google search and I think the best explanation is the one below that I linked to.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Sorghum Syrup

No Ted, Shirley wasn't pulling your leg.

There are two things that you can do to hasten ripening of tomatoes when frost is near in the Fall but the ones more likely to ripen faster are the mature ones that have some blush to them, not the pure greenies.

You can take a sharp flat blade spade and cut around the plant about a foot out and a foot down from the main stem and that severs the feeder roots which tends to prevent further vegetative growth and hasten ripening.

Or you can pull up on the plant, twisting as you do, which also severs the fibrous feeder roots as well.

Carolyn

Broomcorn brooms are still pretty common in northern China, where my wife is from. They don't last as long, but for the same price as a more modern one made from plastic and a broomstick you could probably buy 20-30 of the broomcorn ones. I guess somethings never stop being useful!

As a side note, is it not true that at the very least plants grown indoors, in a tent or in a greenhouse without strong air currents might benefit from a bit of shaking?

This is the first I've ever heard of "broom corn". Tomato plants set pollen usually between about 10 am and 2 pm -- when it's the warmer part of the day at any rate. If you bump the plant, yellow pollen will fall; you can see it.

Now, for the 21st Century Broom Corn: Electric Toothbrush (battery-operated) -- just tickle the flower trusses and you'll have maters 'till it won't quit!

heck I thought those people beating them darn tomato plants were just knocking off the small tomatoes cause either they grow big or they get wacked.

And cornbrooms work well for wacking black n white hornets nest too!!!! just be prepared to run ....

george

I love all the responses. Thank you.

Carolyn,

I have now been educated about tugging on tomatoes. Thank you.

Returning to sorghum, I read the wiki link and it did answer my question. However, I'm still not sure if "grain sorghum" and "sweet sorghum (separate from sugar cane)" are the same thing. When I was a kid, farmers would cut the grain sorghum at ground level retaining the seed heads on the stalk, shock it, or tie it into bundles with binder string and save it as winter feed for their cattle. They typically called it Milo. I also know that what we called Milo (farmers may still call it Milo) is the primary cereal grain consumed by humans in Africa. They call it corn.

Sometimes it gets a little confusing for someone like me with limited neurons bouncing around in their cranium.

Thanks Again!

Ted

I was wondering about the word "milo," which reminded me of "millet." Haven't found a good article that really addresses the milo-millet-sorghum issue, but apparently sorghum is a type of millet, though not the most commonly grown kind, pearl millet.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proso_millet

missintheobvious,

Yes, I had forgotten the name millet which is sometimes applied to the cattle feed. The names milo and millet used to be interchangeable for me. They may not be.

Probably have to shake them also. :) :)

Ted