sow…reap…compost…repeat
sow…reap…compost…repeat
Argue for your limitations and they are yours forever.
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
"Also, just as you want men to do to you, do the same way to them" (Luke 6:31)
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Thekla McDaniels wrote:I live in a very cold climate, (not polar, interior at 6000 feet) and I have just one thing to add.
Years ago I noticed sunflowers germinate much earlier than the seed packet would have you believe.
Next to an old concrete sidewalk or down in the crevices between wood chip mulch, they germinate AND survive subsequent snows.
My best theory is that the mulch and concrete provide enough protection… similar protection could be devised with rocks and logs, and protected with a light covering of straw.
If I direct sow later, the direct down seeds grow, but don’t catch up, flowering much later than the “feral” ones.
My guess is that we can take advantage of this if we need early sunflower bloom, or need to lengthen the growing season for a particular crop.
With the feral germination style, you probably don’t get the same survival rate as later plantings. And if I have spent money on the seeds, I want the higher success rate, soooo, the first year, I use bought or rare seed to produce as much seed as I can. When I have so much seed I don’t need every seed to produce, I switch to feral germination.
I consider that I am changing what “weed seeds” inhabit my soil, or that I am adding preferred species to my latent seed bank.
If shelling sunflower seeds isn’t practical, I feed the seeds to the chickens, who turn them into eggs…. I just cut the seed heads right before the wild birds take more than I want to share, then dole them out to the chickens in winter.
They can also be germinated in trays as in
fodder systems, thus increasing nutrient density for humans as well as our livestock.
Sunflower seeds and the seed heads are good fodder for goats too. Mine prefer them green and immature, or mature and in the shell, but removed from the seed head.
When I am culling flowers because I want different size or shape or color, the flowers I remove are goat favorites
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Jan White wrote:Supposedly buckwheat is prone to lodging in soils high in nitrogen. My soil is highly deficient in nitrogen and my buckwheat has all fallen over three years in a row. I don't know if anyone else has that problem, but it might be something to be prepared for if you try it.
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Alexia Allen wrote:
a few rows Skagit Blue (reportedly) perennial wheat, planted April 2021. So far so good; it stands up to grazing pressure and then can put up seed heads when I move the goats out of there in the spring. It made some seed heads the first year I planted it. .
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
Mike Lafay wrote:
For now, I want in a few years to grow almost all of my food, but I'm ready to make a few compromise for the most annoying stuff. If buying 10kg of grains for 25 bucks mean I can save a dozen day of hard work, then so be it (as long as said grain is GMO free, organic, etc). But maybe growing a lot of grain to then turn it into fresh eggs and delicious chickens would be much less work, and provide more. From what I know, grain is absolutely not essential to live. But it can help makes nice things, like cakes, pasta, pie, etc.
Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. ~Wendell Berry
Best luck: satisfaction
Greatest curse, greed
With appropriate microbes, minerals and organic matter, there is no need for pesticides or herbicides.
Faye Streiff wrote: Need a good small manual thresher for the tiny amount we have.
With appropriate microbes, minerals and organic matter, there is no need for pesticides or herbicides.
Faye Streiff wrote:
Wish we could grow millet, but without a thresher would be impossible to winnow.
Jan White wrote:
Faye Streiff wrote:
Wish we could grow millet, but without a thresher would be impossible to winnow.
Faye, I've grown small amounts of pearl millet a couple times and it winnows just fine on a breezy day. I threshed it by shuffle dancing around on it in a bin. Some of the grain doesn't release well from the husk, but I think that's a problem that can be remedied by a few generations of seed selection. I'm working on it. The grain with husks can still be ground into flour just fine.
Pearl millet is so tasty, I really hope more people try it out!
With appropriate microbes, minerals and organic matter, there is no need for pesticides or herbicides.
Bless your Family,
Mike
Welcome to the serfdom.
Mike said, "The grains that I have available to sow are:
Amaranth
Quinoa
Rice
Millet
Sunflower
Sorghos
Invasive plants are Earth's way of insisting we notice her medicines. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Everyone learns what works by learning what doesn't work. Stephen Herrod Buhner
Welcome to the serfdom.
Wheat need to be somewhat processed before being usable, and I'd like to avoid that.
Hans Albert Quistorff, LMT projects on permies Hans Massage Qberry Farm magnet therapy gmail hquistorff
Jeff Steez wrote:You could try corn and stick to nixtamalizing it as they have done for centuries to produce traditional flatbreads (Johnny cakes, tortillas, hoe cakes) and of course grits/polenta, cornmeal...
I am sort of in this same dilemma and I think growing field corn is my choice in extreme Florida heat. Amaranth, it grows where it wants at this point in the garden, I mostly keep it for the leaves which in China are used as "spinach". the grain is definitely a hassle and I swear rodents around here love it more than anything they've ever had.
I am just about to place a seed order which includes "Red Aztec spinach" which I think is going to be a winner, it is one of the first domesticated crops around, loves heat and should be very easy to grow. The seed is suitable for gruel and bread it says. I am hoping to naturalize it all around so I don't have to tend to it and always have a supply. Mexicans deep fry the flower buds it says as well.
Anne Miller wrote:I was going to answer the question with corn on the cob though since you have these:
Mike said, "The grains that I have available to sow are:
Amaranth
Quinoa
Rice
Millet
Sunflower
Sorghos
Why not grow some of eat then let the forum know which was the easiest?
Jeff Steez wrote:Here's another thing that surprised me if you want something to enhance what else you grow... SESAME!
I swear I planted a small sesame seed and it seemed like it grew a foot a day here in Florida and I didn't water it specifically once. The only thing in my entire garden I didn't have to water. It grew like a weed, it's a huge bush now basically 5-6 feet tall and just started making seed pods. The leaves smell amazing and can be used as well, it would be a great addition to flavor the breads or grains/pseudograins you choose.
Other grains I have in my bins... Durum (which turns into semolina flour for pasta), you could grow beans for grinding into flour, lots of popular recipes are made of black bean flour these days, I also have teff whose seeds are microscopic. They eat the grain a lot in Africa, here the often feed the grass/hay part to horses, it's very nice.
Lexie Smith wrote:I watched a wonderful video on the subject and the authority recommended buying a small amount of each that you’re interested in and just seeing what does well. At the end of the season, harvest and use all you can and save seeds for planting. His way was to just plant the grains together. One of the very thoughtful questions was about cross pollination affecting the end result and the guy was completely relaxed about it. He said that you weren’t required to have a name or a pedigree for something you’re growing to eat and that it will change over time and selection anyway. In this way you find out what you like to eat and what you can manage for your location. I’m not sure I would do so many all together but the take home for me was that the only requirement for me is if we like it.
Howard Hawhee wrote:I saw the original post. I'm also in zone 8b with clay soil, though in Texas, so it's a lot hotter. It is mid-August 2022, and this summer we have had temperatures of 100-106F (38-41C) every day for the past two months and no rain. Amaranth and sunflowers work even in this weather (but of course we planted them earlier). We planted sorghum last year and it did well also. We planted it early in the spring and gave it lots of extra water for the first few weeks.
Here in most of eastern North America we have Lamb's Quarters chenopodium album), a native plant considered a weed, but it grows without any intervention and is both good for its greens and its grain. The greens are comparable to spinach. It is a close relative of Quinoa (chenopodium quinoa) and north american indigenous cultures actually used it as one of the staples in their diet. All of that makes me think that quinoa would do ok, though perhaps it likes cooler summers as it's from the Andes. Both Lamb's Quarters and Quinoa are related closely to Amaranth.
Our corn burned up even though we watered daily.
What's the video that Lexie Smith watched?
Hans Quistorff wrote:
Wheat need to be somewhat processed before being usable, and I'd like to avoid that.
Now that you will be planning the winter garden reconsider the wheat which is a winter crop in your growing zone. Try the wheat berries often sold in bulk for human food. These are generally selected for ease of processing. In my area soft white winter wheat is sold for animal feed and when it ripens threshes out with little effort. My practice is to feed chickens whole grains in there movable pen through the garden and then pull or cut the resulting grain stalks and let them do the threshing to feed themselves.
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