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Post by robin282 on Feb 4, 2016 10:05:26 GMT -5
My experience with small grains started out through my "challenge plant" thing I do every year. Each season, I choose a plant that I have never grown before such as celery, some herbs, and grains.
The year I grew grains, I got as many as I could in packet size, since it was a test grow. They grew well, so I knew it could be done where I lived. However, that was back in Southeast Massachusetts-zone 7. I now live in DownEast, Maine-zone 5. This year, I would like to try some test plots, but not as small as before.
Last year, I bought Small-scale Grain Raising by Gene Logsdon. I also went through all my old Organic Gardening magazines. Last week, I got Homegrown Whole Grains by Sara Pitzer, and The Organic Grain Groewer by Hack Lazor. The latter is much heavier material than the books by Logsdon and Pitzer. All are good books.
While reading Logsdon and Pitzer, I felt encouraged to proceed, excited to begin. While reading Lazor, I started to feel a bit intimidated by the prospect of growing more than a handful of grain. All books have the requisite information to get the job done, but Lazor is a small-scale grain farmer, and in his case it is important to avoid catastrophe. He also has small equipment, and photographed it for inclusion in the book.
I have a lot more room at my new home than ever before, and would like to raise some grain for my animals. Lazor does give some attention to the old ways with grain, and I intend to try them. I will likely never have 'farm equipment'. So many of the tasks involved will be difficult and time consuming according to Lazor. I am not swayed away from growing the grain, but it feels much more serious now.
The more I lean about the chemicals in farming, the more I want to avoid them. Organic chicken food is more than double what I can get their complete ration for, so I wanted to grow some at home. We shall see.
Several seed companies are offering more than one type of each grain, so I will try another test. During this season I will set my goats on my Eastern slope on the other side of my stream. I haven't dome much over there, it is a bit of a walk to go around the road way. Once they have that cleared, and I have my test done, I will plant grain in the fall over there.
I am going to switch back to Logsdon's and Pitzer's books for some encouragement.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 4, 2016 10:53:04 GMT -5
Might as well give an update on my attempts
A lot of what I sowed is now gone. It looks like I may have jumped the gun a little on the "winter versus spring sown determination). My method of }plant half the pack now, and then plant the other half when the first half shows signs it can take the winter frost, seems like the correct one, and at least it meant that I still have half of those that clearly didn't (for sowing in the spring) But it looks like a lot of the ones I thought were "fall/winter sown" were more along the lines of "prefer to grow in very cool condtions" or "will live through a DRY subzero situation; but can't handle being actually covered in ice. Of the four or five that seemed to pass, only the black einkorn seems to be showing clear signs it is a true winter sown (the presence of small green shoots even as it is otherwise blanketed in snow and ice). It is possible that one other of the species wheats (either the vavilovii, timpoheevi, or petropavloskii; i' have to go out and count pots to be sure) may make it (everything on the surface is dead but at least it is still firm, so the roots may still be good and ready to pop back. But the others have more or less just rotted away (as do most young grasses when the die and freeze) No great worries, I can try again with those someday, maybe (it depend on if I can sneak another order of seeds through customs from Canada) In fact, it may prove to be to my advantage (it wasn't until I planted the pots I realized that I have essentially occupied all of the pedestals, and had left no room for the bean pots come the spring. So I was trying to work out some complicated pot rotation system.)
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 1:25:44 GMT -5
Flocks of wintering sparrows seem to be my greatest obstacle to growing grains--any cool season crop to be honest. (They head north around mid-May, and return here in mid-October.) Here is a photo showing my Winter Cereal Rye (right), mowed down to an inch or two, and Baart Wheat (left) completely untouched. Both were planted at the same time. I'm not sure of the reason for this preference. I tasted a few blades of each today, and I think the rye was actually a little tougher than the wheat. The sparrows have also decimated both my sowings of Pima Club Wheat this fall/winter, while leaving other adjacent rows of grains unscathed. The first Pima sowing managed to sprout before it was eaten, but the second the birds dug up and ate the seeds within the first few days after they were planted (these were in separate gardens--miles from each other). I am baffled as to how they can be so uniformly discerning in their preferences for different grain varieties. Any ideas?
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Post by steev on Feb 12, 2016 3:03:10 GMT -5
The little buggers have better eyes than we do; they've cleaned out 100% of my last three plantings of peas. They know what they like.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 12, 2016 6:04:13 GMT -5
Such things are the bane of my garden, and the main reason I have to either grow everything on pedestals in pots or over plant by Brobdingnagian amounts to overwhelm their rapacity. And it is much the same way. My neighbors can plant corn in their garden and it is untouched I plant and it is decimated (actually I wish it was decimated; technically that would mean that 90% of it still made it through) The one I can never get is when I put a pile of leftovers of the same stuff next to the fresh planting (so that it is actually less work and more productive for the critters to hit that.) and they ignore it and STILL go for the planting (or more accurately, destroy the planting first and then get to the pile a lot later when they have finished stripping the garden bare). Sometimes the eat the planting and then BURY the sacrifice pile seeds for later then forget them (I have had a lot of years where the corn plants I actually got came for burying alone). I have to re-plant my corn 4 times before a sprout makes it past three inches (or more often before I give up for the year because I've run out of seed)
Birds did a job on my peas last year too. 150 or so went in, 9 came out (so 6%). I poured thirty literal POUNDS of cow peas into the stump; the survivor's whole seed production fits in the cup of my hand
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Post by reed on Feb 12, 2016 8:07:17 GMT -5
Critters are apparently attracted to anything you try to take care of. Here for example I could plant a grape vine in the yard, mulch it a little, keep the grass and weeds away and the deer and or rabbits will immediately destroy it. Plant the same vine in the weeds and there is good chance they will leave it alone. I'v been trying to achieve a balance between cultivating something enough for it to grow and leaving it neglected enough that they don't bother it. I's an ongoing battle.
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Post by blueadzuki on Feb 12, 2016 9:19:00 GMT -5
Actually I think part of the problem for me is that a lot of the critters are not being attracted to the plants per se (given that the plant, while utterly destroyed is usually all still there) but to the smell of any insects unearthed by the turning over of the soil to plant the plant in the first place. I am almost inclined to dig the holes for planting a few weeks BEFORE actually planting anything to let the soil re-age but I know it would be largely pointless (I'd still have to disturb the soil for most things to cover the seed over unless I was prepared to leave the seed in holes uncovered and naked, which is probably not good for it.
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Post by steev on Feb 12, 2016 13:00:20 GMT -5
Critters are apparently attracted to anything you try to take care of. That's why I'm going to plant handgrenades.
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 13:01:01 GMT -5
I've been trying to achieve a balance between cultivating something enough for it to grow and leaving it neglected enough that they don't bother it. Good point, reed! I guess that's a good argument for leaving a screen of weeds around new plantings to act as camouflage until seedlings are hardened off. Better yet, maybe some self sowing arugula or rapini. I seem to remember Masanobu Fukuoka recommending the use of clay seed balls to protect grain seeds from sparrow predation. I haven't tried that yet. Seems like a lot of work. I've seen friends have reasonable success using them for native grass seed though!
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 13:05:09 GMT -5
They've cleaned out 100% of my last three plantings of peas. Yes, peas seem to be their seedling of choice. Although they didn't touch my recent row of Sugar Magnolia pea that was planted next to the Pima Club wheat!
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Post by philagardener on Feb 12, 2016 19:14:38 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Feb 14, 2016 21:09:03 GMT -5
Sparrows into smithereens!
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Post by prairiegarden on Feb 15, 2016 15:58:03 GMT -5
Actually I think part of the problem for me is that a lot of the critters are not being attracted to the plants per se (given that the plant, while utterly destroyed is usually all still there) but to the smell of any insects unearthed by the turning over of the soil to plant the plant in the first place. I am almost inclined to dig the holes for planting a few weeks BEFORE actually planting anything to let the soil re-age but I know it would be largely pointless (I'd still have to disturb the soil for most things to cover the seed over unless I was prepared to leave the seed in holes uncovered and naked, which is probably not good for it. Possibly take enough soil away when you dig the holes that you could use it to cover the seeds when you planted them later in the hole? Or put some sort of other soil.. a handful of potting soil? over the seed... would cost something but probably not as much as losing all your seed and the effort of planting over and over... if they are going after the insects and not the plant itself it might work. Although..if they are looking for signs of disturbance in the soil rather than (for example) being enticed in by the smell of freshly dug earth then it might not work. Would rubber fake snakes help?
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Post by 12540dumont on Feb 17, 2016 17:12:37 GMT -5
Walk, that's what I do too for cooking hominy or posole, overnight soak in lime, cooked till it starts to explode and then rinse rinse did I say rinse? Our other choice for pasta sauce is grinding the corn and making polenta. We love it. Walk, if I lit the stove at this time of year, the men would run me out of Dodge. It's 68 degrees!
I just planted peas, last year we got so few, I replanted 3x because the migrating cheeps. So, today I planted potatoes and peas, but I made a tent like run of aviary netting over the peas. When they are finally up, I'll remove the netting and put the trellis in. What a pain in the neck.
It's suddenly spring here. The daffodils are blooming, the acacia and fruit trees are blooming. Hopefully this evening's rain will brink up those taters and peas.
We have NEVER had this many birds. Last year we had many more than every before and had a hard time with lettuce. It's a little Hitchcockess here.
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Post by indianamike on Feb 18, 2016 8:41:09 GMT -5
One thing my dad and I did in the sandy soil at his place is to cultivate at a 45 deg angle to the direction you are going to plant the rows. This seemed to through off the moles, but admittedly we didn't have bird predation. The moles would follow the tilled angle and not the rows, since the tilled angle was deeper than the row disturbance. It was entertaining to watch the moles miss the rows, they would get some of the seeds, but not the whole row.
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