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Post by mountaindweller on Jul 22, 2012 19:11:04 GMT -5
I am about to prepare a bed for hull less oats. I wonder weather it is worthwhile growing grains in the backyard at all and which grains are easily processed.
We cannot import grains into Australia. Seed companies sell you "wheat" or "rye" and don't tell you weather it is for hot or cold climate or if it is wheat suitable for winter or spring sowing. Is the variety important at all?
I go cheaper in the shop and buy some wheat grouts and sow them than order at a seed company.
Who grows grains and which are worthwhile at all? Amaranth? Quinoa? Wheat? Spelt? Rye?....
We only have a little corona mill and it is a pain in the ..... milling anything with it.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 22, 2012 20:23:18 GMT -5
I'd say that corn (maize) is by far the easiest grain to grow and process by hand. After that wheat, rye, sorghum, millet, triticale, barley, oats, spelt, rice and buckwheat in order of increasing processing difficulty. JMO
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 22, 2012 20:26:58 GMT -5
I wonder weather it is worthwhile growing grains in the backyard at all and which grains are easily processed. As far as I'm concerned corn is the easiest grain to grow and process. Sorghum is also easy. Modern wheat and rye are OK to grow and process because the grain falls easily from the seed head when threshed. Barley, Oats, and the older varieties of wheat have husks that are tightly held to the seed. Winter planted wheat/rye will generally produce more grain than the same variety planted in the spring. |
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Post by mountaindweller on Jul 22, 2012 21:26:12 GMT -5
If you don't know what vartiety of wheat rye it is, does it matter weather you plant it in spring or autumn?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 22, 2012 22:04:42 GMT -5
If you don't know what vartiety of wheat rye it is, does it matter weather you plant it in spring or autumn? Around here, red wheats are generally winter planted, and white wheats are spring planted. With unknown wheats, I recommend planting half the seed in the fall, and half in the spring, and see which does best. If you fall-plant a variety that is not winter-hardy in your area, then it will die during the winter. But if you plant a variety that is winter hardy in the spring, then you are likely to get a smaller harvest, especially if it is not irrigated and you have early summer dry spells. (Steev reports smaller harvests for fall planted wheat due to competition with weeds. I don't have fall/winter weeds in my garden.) There are also strictly-winter wheats that will not flower until they have had so much cooling, but they seem uncommon in my experience. My strategy is to plant landrace wheat in the fall, about the time of our first fall frost (which corresponds with the beginning of our fall rainy season). By doing so, I am selecting for wheat that is winter-hardy in my garden. |
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Post by steev on Jul 22, 2012 22:39:55 GMT -5
To the extent that I have one, my strategy is to seek grains I can plant when the rains come in Fall, as they can grow without irrigation and be mature sooner, so as not to take up Spring veggie space too long. For me, not much grows after April without irrigation, as there's no rain until late October, at the earliest. I'm trialing some rices, with veggie-quantity irrigation, and I grow sorghum, watered once-weekly. Neither of these will survive Winter where I farm.
Until such time as I have a quality grain mill, my Corona is just for cracking softened grain, for hot cereal, adding to soups, tabbouli, like that; I'd never try to produce flour with it; I think it's really for grinding nixtamal. I'm not sure grinding dry grain in it results in more edible calories than are burned in the process.
I wonder how good a flour mill I could cobble together, powered by my '62 Valiant.
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Post by mountaindweller on Jul 23, 2012 21:39:59 GMT -5
I think I will try our rye in autumn. Because it has no hulls and because it makes good bread.
For the backyard you could classify grains like this:
1. fairly easy - corn
2. grains which are ridiculously small and/or shatter: amaranth, quinoa, buckwheat
3. grains that are impossible to process: like hulled oats, barley etc.
The main problem is harvesting and processing not growing grains. And keeping the birds out.
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Post by circumspice on Jul 24, 2012 2:41:39 GMT -5
To the extent that I have one, my strategy is to seek grains I can plant when the rains come in Fall, as they can grow without irrigation and be mature sooner, so as not to take up Spring veggie space too long. For me, not much grows after April without irrigation, as there's no rain until late October, at the earliest. I'm trialing some rices, with veggie-quantity irrigation, and I grow sorghum, watered once-weekly. Neither of these will survive Winter where I farm. Until such time as I have a quality grain mill, my Corona is just for cracking softened grain, for hot cereal, adding to soups, tabbouli, like that; I'd never try to produce flour with it; I think it's really for grinding nixtamal. I'm not sure grinding dry grain in it results in more edible calories than are burned in the process. I wonder how good a flour mill I could cobble together, powered by my '62 Valiant. I bet you could cobble together something that works very well. Doesn't a '62 Valiant have a rear axle that has a 'drive side' like the old Model Ts? My grandfather powered all manner of equipment with a drive belt attached to the "drive side" wheel of his old Model T Ford. My grandmother had the only 'automatic' clothes washer in the county because of that drive belt.  I think he also used it to power a grain mill & a cane squeezer, among other items. |
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Post by mountaindweller on Jul 24, 2012 7:40:21 GMT -5
How about Japanese millet? It is traditionally eaten in Japan but how did they hull/threash it?
Not that I know anything about Japanese kitchen, but it might always make a porridge.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 24, 2012 8:48:19 GMT -5
It takes about 5 square feet to grow a pound of dry corn seed and about 18 square feet to grow a pound of wheat seed.
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Post by bunkie on Jul 24, 2012 10:39:44 GMT -5
mountaindweller, for the barley and oats, try growing the hulless varieties.
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Post by MikeH on Jul 24, 2012 15:46:14 GMT -5
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Post by circumspice on Jul 24, 2012 16:31:54 GMT -5
How much space does it take to grow 100 pounds of a particular grain, guess that would be 2 bushel or so? I have a berm across the back, thinking grain in the fall/winter, then sweet taters and squash for the summer. Have finally killed out the blackberries, working on trumpet vines, morning glory, and Johnson grass. Plant anything now and it would be over grown. Patience in reclaiming overgrown areas, remove eliminate one allows the dormant seeds a chance. Those belt drives are deadly, literally lethal. When the belt pin breaks they whip out, easily killing anyone they hit. Better to use drive shafts. I suppose that could be true, but if a person practices good sense & inspects all parts of the belt drive system every time before utilizing it, I doubt there would be any problems that weren't caught during that inspection. My dad grew up during the Great Depression, watching my grandfather use that drive belt & Model T system for years. He said they never had any problems & were the envy of the whole county. |
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Post by raymondo on Jul 24, 2012 17:12:08 GMT -5
I grew some Ethiopian barley (hulless) last season and was delighted with the ease of threshing. I'll be putting in a decent patch this season. Flour corn is also something I'm keen to try though my one and only attempt a few years back was an abysmal failure. I'm hopefully a bit more corn savvy now having read lots here.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 24, 2012 20:14:33 GMT -5
I do most jobs in the garden barehanded, even pulling thistles. But I put gloves on for threshing. There are so many poking little parts to seed heads.
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I think he also used it to power a grain mill & a cane squeezer, among other items. 
