The Great Wheat Experiment

In January, during a particularly frigid spell, I decided to plant wheat on the bottom terrace just to see if it would grow. So I turned it under and hand-scattered the scant quarter-pound of hard, red winter wheat I had left over from my grain stash. I like to grind my own for making bread and pasta, so figured I might as well grow some. Planted in the first part of January, it should be ready for harvest sometime in June.

Lost a lot of it before I figured out that what was growing wasn’t regular turf grass, but what made it past the first mowing is looking good. Should end up with a little more than I planted, next winter I’ll do better.

Grinding grains isn’t hard. Some people even have electric grinders. Mine is just a clamp-to-the-counter sausage grinder looking thing from Poland, works great. I can grind course or fine, hard grains to softish nuts like acorns, mix and match as I see fit. Particularly like some fine rice flour in with my fine wheat pastry flour for making herbed pastas. Which actually is a lot of trouble to make even with a pasta machine, but definitely worth it.

At any rate, I got into the wheat growing business just in time, as OCA tells me Monsanto is back trying to wedge its genetically engineered varieties into fields in the U.S., Canada and Australia despite strong resistance from farmers and consumers. Perhaps this winter I’ll till a few of the up-side terraces and grow wheat. Here’s a three-part lowdown on Monsanto’s latest, a reason we should all be wary of their plans to own the world’s food supply.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

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