Speaking of growing Red Fife Wheat in North America, I ran across this article on Boston.com about farmers in Vermont starting to grow grain again after a one hundred year absence. The price of growing and transporting grains from the midwest has given northeast farmers a competitve reason to start growing again.
The resurgence of interest in regional grain-growing picked up momentum about five years ago, as Vermont dairy farmers faced escalating costs for grain shipped from the Midwest to feed their cows. Costs have doubled while supplies have grown more scarce, farmers said, because of a host of factors, including crop failures in the American heartland, increasing global food demand, unprecedented fuel costs … more and more Vermonters, from all walks of life, are turning to locally grown foods, farmers and bakers said, creating new markets for, among other products, Vermont-grown wheat for making flour and bread.
I think we’re going to start seeing more and more of this as the price of oil goes higher and higher. Why get your wheat from 1500 miles away when you can grow it in your own county?
It was nice to see your article. It’s nice to see others on the same page as me. I’ve never grown wheat before. I had my first veg. garden this year. I learned how to can this year and I’m experimenting with drying seeds before gov. or whom ever makes that more difficult to do. I realize that wheat is a huge part of my diet and wonder how realistic it is to grow and turn into flower for bread. How much land are we talking to create enough wheat for it to be worth while? I s there an organic seed source? Whats your take on this? This may sound odd but I feel that as vters I feels like friends with those who are on the same sort of path of discovery for truth and heritage of living. If u have any thoughts they would be greatly appreciated. I live in a small town that doesn’t seem to have much of a clue about the possibilities of what could happen! Thanks allot. Stacey
We’re experimenting as well with growing grains. I’m not sure how much you need to grow for how much flour. But it’s certainly doable.
The challenge is the amount of work put into a 5lb sack of flour. Growing it, drying it, cleaning it, processing it….is much more than the $3 you pay at the store. This is probably why many people don’t grow grains.
On a related note, we just got done growing and harvesting dry beans. We probably grew about 10 square feet of bean plants. After we shelled the beans, we have about a quart of dry beans. If you cook with beans, you know this is an enormous about of food since beans swell up with water. A great source of protein. All this being said, that quart of dry beans costs about a dollar if I bought them in the store. Something just ain’t right.
hey yall… I love what you are up to and you inspired me to do a little documenting…
check out these videos for grain havesting for seed…
http://www.mapofsaltspring.com/raven/
These videos you made on saving seeds are awesome. Something we need to blog. You rock.
hi Jay…
thanks for writing back. umm… i head from ryan that you are doing some john jeavons style stuff in the garden… I saw him speak here on the island this spring and it inspired me to do a video exposee on the eight limbs of his approach. not to take up your time, but if you want to see some videos about that, go to http://www.youtube.com/ravenseen
peace
raven
man, you are a treasure trove of video info. These are great. Hope you sent them to the Grow Biointensive folks. They’d be psyched.
I dug our most recent beds this way. We grew so much food in a very small space. Makes me wonder why people plow a quarter acre just for a home garden.
and I posted about your Grow Biointensive videos on our localization group: http://shenandoah.lefora.com/2008/10/01/videos-growbiointensive-method/ (Feel free to join if you want to emphasize anything I missed)