Fallsington Farmers Add a Splash of Color to the Plate

An ear of corn is usually not the place to find some mystery. Peel back the husk, find some crisp, yellow or white kernels and go about your day. On a patch of land on the side of Tyburn Road in Fallsington, however, there's a virtual library of twist endings sprouting from the ground.

Using seeds cultivated by a recently deceased, half-Cherokee farmer from Kansas named Carl Barnes, Chip Taylor and Joe Tarr have grown a crop of glass gem rainbow corn that produces vegetables with different shades of blue, green, purple, yellow and red.

The multitude of hues and shades can make great, natural decorations, but Taylor says that people hanging the corn from the walls would miss out on the inherent dietary values.

"Each color holds a different nutrient," said Taylor. "Grind it up into a corn meal or pop it for a very healthy snack."

The glass gem corn is the latest delicacy produced by the partners and friends since they started farming sections of Taylor's two-acre property two years ago. Taylor is a member of the family that originally owned a large portion of the land in Fallsington.

What started as a hobby for the two natural food enthusiasts has turned into a money-making venture that includes hard-to-find vegetables such as purple carrots, homemade honey from their own bees and a full selection of hot sauces that has attracted restaurants from Louisiana.

"The south is known for its sauce," said Tarr. "The fact that they want to use ours says a lot."

Through the help of an online seed exchange facilitated on Reddit.com, Taylor has managed to get his hands on peppers that can send even the sturdiest palatte screaming for relief. With names like ghost peppers and jalepeno drop, the vegetables are currently vying for the world record for hottest pepper.

Employed full time as computer technicians for the Pennsbury School District, Taylor and Tarr are in the thick of harvesting season. They will spend a bulk of their free time from now until the first frost chopping thousands of peppers and turning them into bottles of sauce.

"We have to be really careful about how we handle them," said Tarr. "It can be really unpleasant when you wipe your eyes after cutting up a ghost pepper. At one point we tried wearing body suits. We looked like Heisenberg from 'Breaking Bad.'"

The sauce, honey and vegetables are regularly available at Fairless Hills Produce Center at 636 Lincoln Highway, but Taylor and Tarr are in final preparations for their biggest sales day of the year, Historic Fallsington Day.

"Everybody knows to check out the hot sauce guys," said Taylor. "Last year we had this big, biker guy come by and try to eat one of the peppers. He held on for as long as he could, but once his face turned beet red he was grabbing for some water."

The public is invited to enjoy folk singers, demonstrations of colonial crafting, tour historic buildings and more during Historic Fallsington Day on Saturday, Oct. 26 from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.