Growing grain- small scale experiments in cereals
We’re near to harvest of our grain crops on the farm at the mo. Farmer Paul sowed a selection of grains last autumn that we are planning to harvest by hand. Here’s what we got:
Were most excited about growing Old Burwell – an old and rare variety of wheat sourced from Brockwell Bake and being bulked as part of the British Isles Community Grain Association. As we are only a few miles from Burwell itself it should hopefully do some good on our land! Its a tall variety but has been standing well.
From L-R, some volunteer modern wheat, Old Burwell wheat, Spelt
Old Burwell wheat in flower in June, anthers hanging out of flowers that have already been pollinated
Old Burwell crop
We’re also growing spelt, rye and oats:
Spelt in flower
Rye ear
Rye crop
Oats
For our grain processing its all very people-powered. Starting with using sickles or scything to cut the standing crop, we then tie up a bundle of crop into sheaves and stand in the field together in a stook to dry out if not already.
Melissa sickling our 2015 oats
The sheaves are then easy to process on our pedal powered threshing machine which does a grand job of removing grain from chaff.
Ben and Dave using the pedal powered threshing machine
Then its up to us and our imaginations to winnow in any way we can and separate the grain from the chaff!
Separating the wheat from the chaff
Successful winnowing by sieving threshed grain/chaff mixture over a sheet. Chaff blows away on the wind and grain will drop to the sheet…
Grains getting cleaner!
Experiments in winnowing
We’ll be doing this all again soon in the next few weeks, so come and join in! See our sign up sheet here.