Laine's Letters: Food Insurance

There are a lot of people out there who find the realities we are facing just a tad too overwhelming. Unfortunately, my spouse is one of them - “Americans won’t let that happen!” Well, dear, we already have.

Yeah. I get that. ;)

Could you share with us your wheat growing experience?

Certainly.

I'm in south-central Wisconsin. If you look at the state as a giant mitten, I'm right near the wrist.

My first attempt at wheat was Kamut, an heirloom variety originally from Egypt. It's a soft amber wheat, good for biscuits and pastries, but might not rise as much as a hard wheat if used for yeast bread. I planted it the first week of May. My first 3 mistakes were not planting densely enough, planting a large block with no way to reach most of it, and planting in a way that left way too many seeds exposed. On that last point, my defense is that I had been working so long that my back started seizing up, and I decided to take shortcuts.

My wheat patch became a living example of a biblical proverb. The wheat grew, but there were so many weeds tangled in with them that there was no way to remove them without damaging the wheat. This also made it hard to tell when to harvest, because the seed heads blended in with the background.

The Kamut ripened about mid-to-late summer. For harvest, I used the sickle mower attachment on my lawn tractor, then tried to rake everything up by hand. The mass of weeds meant that for every ounce of wheat, I had to lift roughly 12 pounds of weeds. For someone with back and muscle problems is a bad idea! I only managed to rake up maybe half the patch, even with help. There was a week of rain and storms after that, so what didn't get raked was left to rot.

Back home, my family helped sort out the wheat from the weeds. All that work, and we found enough wheat that the seedheads filled half a paper grocery bag. And that's with the awns still attached!

I haven't threshed it yet, but I'd be surprised if it comes to half a cup.

At the same time I bought the Kamut seed, I also bought seed for a hard white winter wheat. That was planted in September, if I remember right. Dates keep blurring together, so it might have been early October. Anyway, this patch was planted very densely, and the seeds covered with the appropriate amount of soil. They were also planted in a long narrow bed, only 4 feet wide, so I can reach the whole thing easily. I forgot to check if it was a dwarf or standard variety, the Kamut was a standard one. I have an idea for something I can attach to my sickle mower to make it work more like a small combine. That should make the harvest a lot easier! I've also invested in a small hand-sickle, in case I need to harvest by hand. That hand-sickle came in really handy for harvesting and weed control in other parts of the garden. I wish I'd gotten one sooner!

I have been reading articles for years about growing your own wheat, but none of them really prepared me for it. They all made it sound so simple.

Well, have a Happy New Year and I hope to get some planting advice from you this spring.........stay healthy!

You've got it! Always happy to help. :)

I like hard white wheat the best for bread and that’s what I have.

I’m going to have to look into it because i do not trust anything or anyone any more and want to be as independent self-sufficient as possible.