09/04/2026
I am tabling my broom corn…
Just kidding. But seriously, that’s what this process is called!
This year I grew broom corn at Bloom Tender because I wanted to learn how to make my own brooms and wreaths from something grown right here on the farm.
Broom corn is one of those plants whose name tells only part of the story. It is not actually corn at all, but a type of sorghum grown for its long, fibrous seed heads. Those sweeping branches are strong, flexible, and durable enough to be gathered together and made into brooms, which is exactly what people have done for generations.
There is an entire season tucked inside a handmade broom. The seed is planted in spring and throughout summer the stalks grow tall and send up their branching heads. When the brush is ready, it is cut by hand and brought in to dry. The seeds are combed or stripped away, leaving behind the long fibers that will eventually do the sweeping. Once those fibers have fully dried and cured, they can be gathered into bundles, tied tightly around a handle, layered until the broom has enough fullness, stitched to hold its shape, and finally trimmed along the bottom.
What looks like an ordinary household object is really the end of a long conversation between soil, weather, plant, and hand. I think that is what draws me to old crafts like broom making.
Living in our historic farmhouse has made me think more about the things that once filled homes like ours, and how many of them began much closer to the doorstep. A field did not simply produce food. It could provide medicine, dye, basket material, wreaths, cordage, and the tools used to tend the home itself. Farm life meant things were sustainable.
There was an intimacy in knowing where things came from because often you had grown them, gathered them, or made them yourself.
Living in a house that has stood for nearly two centuries, it only feels right that the hearth should be swept with something grown from the same land outside its windows. There is something beautiful about bringing an old skill back into use, not because we have to, but because we still can.
The land gives us more than food. Sometimes, if we are paying attention, it also gives us the materials to make a life.
