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To: Tilted Irish Kilt

I posted a comment in the cooking thread, but for those here who don’t read that, lambsquarters is a wild form of quinoa. the last 2 years I’ve purposely let some go to seed in an unused corner of the garden, just so I could harvest the seeds.

Still working on a more efficient way to winnow them. I built a bucket thresh and a hand-cranked dehuller that both work on them, but the winnowing is tricky. Not to mention dusty!


45 posted on 11/11/2016 9:12:22 PM PST by Ellendra (Those who kill without reason cannot be reasoned with.)
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To: Ellendra
Ellendra :" Still working on a more efficient way to winnow them,.. but the winnowing is tricky. Not to mention dusty!

When I grew hard red winter wheat, and rye, I did my own winnowing in the driveway with a 10 X 10 foot tarp and a 20 inch electric window fan on 3/4 power.
The lighter chaff would carry downwind from the fan, just off the tarp, leaving the berries on the tarp.
With the quinoa, given the seed size, and lite weight, I am unsure how that could be efficiently done without loosing a lot of the seed.
Prior to winnowing, I had hand flailed the wheat with a homemade device of two pieces of wood joined by two interlocking screw-eye pieces of metal hardware.
Perhaps the flail could loosen the seed from the husk/shell (?).
Yeah, I know "dusty"!!
I would just stand offset and upwind from the electric fan.

46 posted on 11/11/2016 9:44:16 PM PST by Tilted Irish Kilt ("Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris.”- Colin Powell)
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To: Ellendra

I don’t know if you use it that way, but I love lambsquarter greens as well. The younger leaves are good fresh in salads, the older ones work well in soups and casseroles, and I’m told the tips of the stems are edible when roasted, though I haven’t tried it yet. They also dehydrate and store beautifully, which makes me happy.

Still working on the winnowing myself...


80 posted on 11/18/2016 1:16:31 PM PST by MightyMama
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