Well, I am ashamed to tell you that it’s 5th December and I have just spent two hours threshing and winnowing the wheat. It has taken me this long to get around to it. This is partly due to being busy and partly down to procrastination. I just didn’t know how to go about it. I intended to thresh and winnow on a dry but breezy day in the garden but every time a day like this came along something else was happening and I just didn’t have the time to get out a sheet and stamp all over the wheat and then throw it up up the air so that the breeze could blow away the chaff and the wheat grain would drop into a bucket.
Instead of getting on with the job, the wheat ears have been sitting in a bowl on the dining room table since they were harvested in August.
Today is a cold and rainy day and I knew that if I wanted to get it done this side of Christmas this was my only window of opportunity, so I set myself up in front of the telly. I put newspaper and an old sheet on the floor and spread the wheat ears on the sheet. I folded it over and stamped all over the wheat ears. Then I squeezed them between my hands to get the last few grains free. April Bearded Wheat has long, sharp beards that pierce through your jumper and get stuck in your arms and hands.
Then I placed handfuls of the chaff and grain in a colander over a sieve and gave it a shake, then swapped so that I was shaking over the colander. Then I blew away the chaff. It made a mess and I breathed in a lot of dust.
From the 40g of original grain I have harvested 200g. Not exactly a raging success but then I am not a very conscientious harvester either, so probably lost a fair amount of grain to the local mouse family. In between cutting down the straw and chopping off the heads of grain the wheat stood in a (sort of) bushel in the greenhouse. The cats found it made an attractive bed and scratched it about and I have no doubt that some of it was also eaten by one of the chickens before I caught her in the act. All in all I would make a terrible farmer.
200g is not enough grain to make half a loaf of bread. I am in two minds as to whether I grind it up and combine it with another flour to make a loaf or keep the seed and plant it again in the spring in a larger patch and see what yield I can get in 2019. I am favouring the latter. If I combine it with another flour I won’t be able to test how the April Bearded really performs as a flour. But if I plant it again, I could potentially lose the whole crop. I think, if we have learned anything from this experiment it is that I will not be winning any Farmer of the Year awards any time soon.
Answers and opinions on the above dilemma are very welcome.
Although 200g is a meagre amount of grain to have harvested I have really enjoyed the process and it has certainly made me appreciate the effort needed to grow wheat. For me, it has been a game. It didn’t matter if the crop failed or if I managed to yield 200g. But by doing it I have learned so much more about the grains I use to make my bread. It has spurred me to read more about wheat varieties and populations, landraces and heritage wheats and to understand how complicated wheat growing is for the farmer, with soil nutrition and managing the threats of weather, pests and disease and so much more. Growing my small patch of wheat has strengthened my resolve to support the farmers that are making the effort to grow the more unusual grains organically or with care for the biodiversity of their farms and the wider environment and I will never take a bag of grain or flour for granted again.
