small scale grain growing

I think you may have mistaken Harvesting with cleaning and milling???

Can the sheeves be stored in the hayloft of the barn unthreshed as long as they were properly dried in the field (stooks)? If one only needed enough for the family's use, could you not simply thresh enough with a good, old fashioned flail for a couple of week's worth of bread flour at a time? Winnowing with a basket they way they did it in the "good old days" using a modern fan then use your grain grinder to make the flour? Am I being too simplistic--I hope not--cause I kinda wanted to try it this way. I don't plan to grow but about an eighth of an acre and was going to cut it by hand with my scythe. Just thought that breaking the hand threshing up into smaller amounts at a time would help to keep it from being overwhelming but, what do I know, I am in Mississippi and grew up with cotton LOL.

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Maggie

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As I read your post, I found myself nodding involuntarily. I think if you try what you are describing, it may be workable. It would indeed make it less overwhelming. Still hard work, but I think doable this way. An eighth of an acre should give you anywhere from 3 to 10 bushels, depending on type of wheat, and management, fertility, and of course weather! This would mean 180 to 600 lbs of wheat. This wheat would cost you between 21 and 70 dollars from a farmer "here", but it may give a lot of personal satisfaction to do it on your own. I guess my point though is that if you were paying yourself for your labor on this crop, how many hours are you willing to put in? It may very well not matter to you at all. This is how I work too, when I have something I want to try for interests sake and the learning experience. Heck with what my labor costs!

Mice???

I bake my own wheat bread and it is soooo good. I purchased a Country Living mill, so I am grinding my own wheat as needed. I even grew a little wheat last winter. We had some work done on an old pond and to stop erosion I planted wheat and fescue on the slops. The pond work failed and the pond still leaks, but I did harvest some of the wheat this summer. The wheat was cut with a scythe, threshed with a 1/2 hp drill and paint stirring paddle, then winnowed with a box fan. It was a lot of work and I may never do it again, but I can do it and do not know many others that can claim to have grown their own wheat, processed into flour, and baked it into bread! It is time consuming and wheat berrys are relatively cheap at the amish store near by. It is hard to get around to everything when you are a one man show!

I did plant some small patches of rye and wheat this year, but mainly as grass feed. One of the areas is outside of the pasture and I have cut some of it with a scythe and carried it to the pigs. I have left part of this area uncut, just in case I decide to let it make grain.

SPIKE

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No, I have done all 3 by hand. I buy mine now as I need more quanity for the animals so I just buy from a friend who combines it. I used a scythe to cut, flailed it on a tarp as stated in a prior post and winnowed in front of a window fan. I grow my own wild rice. I roast the oats before rubbing between my hands to remove the groats and grind in my manual mill. There is a small thresher advertized that can be run by belt from a bicycle or motor driven. I raised grain for 20 years, up to 800 acres a year. Mostly wheat but a good amount of malting barley and feed oats for rotation, planted with peas or vetch. I would mix feed quality wheat, barley and oats, grind in my own mill and added Morman minerals. I finished 800 hogs a year and sold through the NFO in the 70's...James

Corn crib with something on top of the stilts to keep the mice from being able to scurry up them, like a gallon ice cream bucket or such. Stack the sheeves in it as you would corn. Plus, barn cats.

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Maggie

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Thank you for the explanation!

I know a farmer in my area that grows oats for his horses. He harvests it like hay: cut rake and bale. He just plops a bale in the paddock and the horses clean it all up. This seems a pretty reasonable way to grow feed for livestock. I'd like to give it a shot next year on a very small scale.
Sadie

Yeah we call that green feed up here. If you can get it in good quality with no rain on it, horses will do anything to eat it!

I grow oats and peas in my raised beds, cut and feed it to the rabbits and goats. These oats are cut when the oat is in the milk stage, while the protien is still in the stalk but you also get the grain value too. Great feed....James

At what point do you feed the peas? My goats loved them at all stages, but I'd like to make sure we get the highest nutritional value, esp. for the protein.

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I collect old wheats, for no particular reason at all...

For the last few years, I grew something called Utrech Blue. This wheat has a blue seed and a black beard. It is really ornamental and just looks nice in the gardens, greens and gold with the blue and black. It was very satisfying to grow and I got a decent yield from just a few rows. I have the heads stored in glass jars on the kitchen table. I nibble on a handful once in a while.

Wheat is heavily challenged by weeds. You need to grow some green manure crops like buckwheat first if you are trying to convert hayfield to garden..... or be willing to stand over it with a hoe all summer.