Hobby Hint

Take an appropriately sized gauge of insulated braided wire (5 to 7 strands). Taper the end (the "top" of the stalk) with a sharp #11 blade so the braided part sticks out and then flare out the wire braid to make the tassel part. Now take the blade and carefully cut downward into the plastic insulation at an oblique angle to make the leaves. I make two near the top and rotate 90 degrees and make two near the bottom so the thing doesn't fall apart. Bend the leaves outward and they should stay that way if you made them thin enough. If the thing falls apart, you didn't place the leaves right... do a couple and you get the hang of it. It helps if you have the hands of a surgeon! Wear magnifiers if you are presbyopic.

Now cut that "plant" off from the wire roll, but be sure to leave enough wire on the bottom of the stalk to serve as a support when you "plant" your stalk. Repeat this many, many times.

Now paint them the color you want: green or tan-yellow. Press the finished plant into the Styrofoam "earth" or drill holes for each stalk (whew... I don't think so!). Note that if you made them around 2 inches long, it is easier to "plant them" later to the right depth. You can always cut off the excess base if you want them shorter.

It is a ton of work if you need to make hundreds, but you can crank out 2 or 3 a minute if you have good eye/hand coordination. You can also make bundles of the stalks for the days when harvesting was done by hand and the whole stalk was cut off.

These little guys look very impressive when you do it right! You can also use the basic technique for modeling sorghum plants. If you are really a stickler, you will want to add ears of corn, but they are so small in scale that you really don't need to do this. You could just dab little bits of yellow or brown paint on the green or tan stalk if you wanted to model the corn silk. I would only do it on the stalks that I see around the edge of the field and forget the rest.

You have done a lot of work... sit back and enjoy the view of your harvest!