home grown wheat - from seed to loaf

[Alik Pelman]

happy to share a short video a made showing step by step growing my own wheat and making flour - from seed to loaf - all done on site with very simple methods (third year in a row) - great fun!. (Western Galilee, Israel):

 

[FarmerD]

awesome! this is a near term future goal of mine. i also plan on small paddies for rice. its inspiring to see someone making it happen!

 

[Britesea]

I really really like your method of threshing! Very clever!

 

[Alik Pelman]

I really really like your method of threshing! Very clever!

thanks! it took me a while to come up with the idea, and I'm rather pleased with the results. Although I could use a better lid (have some idea, yet to be tried).

 

[baymule]

Sounds like a great idea!

 

[FarmerD]

have you established how much area you need to devote to raising grains to have an adequate supply? my situation consists of two adults, and currently i have now experience with grain or how large an area would be required for a couple to have bread continously

 

[Alik Pelman]

have you established how much area you need to devote to raising grains to have an adequate supply? my situation consists of two adults, and currently i have now experience with grain or how large an area would be required for a couple to have bread continously

A relatively conservative estimate is something between 0.8-1 ton of grain per acre. if wheat is not your only source of grains/carb, i guess two medium loaves a week would do for two adults, which means about 1kg (2lbs) a week (i.e., ±50kg a year). So you'd need to saw about 1/15 of an acre in order to be self-sufficient with wheat flour. Hope this gives you a rough idea. Good luck! Alik

 

[Britesea]

There's a book called something like Small-Scale Grain Raising that I remember reading years ago. I think the author suggested somewhere in the region of 1000 square feet for wheat, but I also vaguely remember that he wasn't making all his bread from it; he called it his Pancake Patch. I suspect you would need close to twice that in order to provide all your wheat needs.
That's a plot 20 x 100 feet- more than I have room for on my piddly half acre- and even if I had the room, I wouldn't want to tackle that by myself without at least a small tractor. I guess I'll have to barter

 

[Alik Pelman]

if you can afford irrigation over summer you can grow corn in the summer and mill it, and thus double your grain harvest from the same plot (winter grain - wheat/barley and then summer grain corn/rice). this would by rather intensive in terms of using the nutrients in the soil so you'll have to compensate by scattering clover seeds and/or having some poultry roaming the field to balance nitrogen.

 

[Britesea]

We have barely 90 days frost-to-frost so most field corn won't have time to mature. I'm planning to try some Painted Mountain corn which was bred specifically to grow in Montana so it might work here as well. As for winter wheat-- I'm not positive, but I don't think wheat will actually grow through the snow, will it?

If the corn doesn't pan out, I may be stuck with quinoa, which was the main grain crop of the Incan empire and was bred to grow in the Andes mountains.