A couple of gardening friends and I grow cover crops in our in-ground beds and raised beds. So far it's been whatever seeds we have on hand like store bought beans, extra chard and mustard seed etc. Anyway, this year my neighbor (& garden buddy) grew a 6' X 12' patch of wheat as a green manure crop. She got a little baggie of seed from a neighbor who was growing a field of red Durham winter wheat. She got sick and couldn't garden for a few weeks. The wheat grew and ripened rather than getting turned under. She decided to harvest the wheat and make some bread. So another garden friend and I (that three old ladies) went out and cut the wheat and tied it into bundles. We left it out in the sun to dry for two weeks. Then, we cut the business end of the wheat from the stalks and put them in plastic buckets. We used plastic baseball bats to break them up. While two of us smashed the wheat with those bats. The third person would hold the stuff we smashed in front of an electric fan and let the wind separate the wheat from the chaff. It took three of us three hours. I was surprised. We got six quarts of grain from a 6' X 12" patch. That's more than I expected. It took three ladies 3 hours. After this was done. We took our jars of wheat indoors and Miss. A. put it through her grinder. She made us all some waffles. She'll use the rest to make bread. We may grow another wheat crop for compost or green manure. I doubt any of us will go through the whole process again. But, should we ever need to "grow" a loaf of bread, all three of us know how to do it.
That's a GREAT story. I love it. Nothing a lady, old or otherwise, can't do if she puts her mind to it, right on??
great story. now have a picture in my head of three old ladies bashing a plastic bucket. made my morning out of interest do you grow this crop over the winter months? to then dig back in in spring?
Now that is really getting back to basics. Should you ever need to be self sufficient you are prepared. Great story.
I've not grown wheat myself but my friend does. She grew it to till back in while it's still green. I haven't tried wheat in my own garden. This year I had a lot of chard, mustard and kale seed so that's what I grew and turned it back in. Right now I have black eyed peas growing in a couple of raised beds that we won't eat. When they flower, I'll dig them back in before planting my fall garden. I doubt I'll ever harvest another wheat patch but it was fun. And as MART said, if I ever need to do this it won't be so intimidating.
That's a great story. As labor intensive as that sounds, I bet it was a lot of fun for y'all. Plus y'all had some great waffles and bread made from very fresh (in a sense) wheat as a reward for your efforts. Great job! :-D
Growing wheat Three old ladies I love your story! We grew wheat and tritical last year, it was my 13 year old daughters idea, she didn't know what she was getting into. wheat field ( photo / image / picture from Farmer_Dave's Garden )We grew a 50X50 ft area mostly in wheat, the tritical was much more productive, next time I would grow all tritical but it is quite the job to thresh it which we did with some homemade flails and we winnowed it using a fan. We got a few little rocks in it too so we had to pour it all out on a table and go through it before we could grind it. Next time we will be more careful. We grew about 75lbs and could have gotten a lot more out of the field if we were hungry, we were pretty loose about our harvesting and thrashing techniques. Wanted to keep it fun for the kids and us too. We grow oats as a cover crop every year but I am sure wheat would work fine for that too. This is the third time I have grown it, educational and fun to share with family and friends but not to practical in this day and age. Harvesting wheat ( photo / image / picture from Farmer_Dave's Garden )
Farmer Dave, I love the pictures of your grain field. I agree--growing your own bread isn't practical. Fortunately it's not necessary either. But, I got a bang out of learning how.
