Corn 'Sheila O'Reilly'
Zea maysA rare, multi-stemmed heirloom corn saved by Sheila O’Reilly for over 45 years in the fertile Tallangatta Valley. Originally sourced from a NSW seed saver’s nursery, this productive variety produces an impressive 3–4 sweet, rich-flavoured cobs per plant, each bursting with old-fashioned corn flavour. Reaching up to 2.5 m tall, it makes a striking feature in the summer garden while providing generous harvests for freezing or eating fresh. Grown with care and passed down through generations, this corn embodies the true spirit of home seed saving — preserving food diversity, flavour, and independence.
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Corn 'Sheila O'Reilly'
Grown and cherished by Sheila and Kevin O’Reilly in the fertile Tallangatta Valley for more than 45 years, this remarkable heirloom corn stands as a living tribute to the passion and principles of home seed savers. Sheila, an early advocate for preserving open-pollinated and heritage varieties, believed that good food should always remain in the hands of ordinary people — not lost to hybridisation or corporate control.
Originally sourced from a seed saver’s nursery on the NSW coast, this Bali-type corn thrived in the O’Reilly family garden. It’s unlike any other sweet corn — producing multiple sturdy stems, each carrying an abundance of small, tender cobs with exceptional sweetness and depth of flavour. Grown in rich, manure-fed soil and rotated seasonally, it became a staple crop that fed a family of seven (and half the neighbourhood) year after year.
In true homegrown tradition, the O’Reilly's froze their harvest to enjoy through the year — boiled, buttered and salted, or stirred through Sheila’s beloved rice salads and summer soups. At full height, the plants can reach over 2.5 metres (9 feet), forming a stunning wall of green that also serves as a natural windbreak for smaller crops.
Today, Sheila O’Reilly Corn continues that legacy — a symbol of seed saving, self-sufficiency, and the simple joy of growing your own food from seed to plate.
Seeds kindly donated by Brian O'Reilly.
