Did you read that as raising cain, Dear Reader? Well usually, I am, but today it’s just grain. Yup, I’m off on another horticulture adventure. This time I’m attempting to be a grain grower. Today was the big shove off, the bon voyage party happened.
3 – 160 sq. ft beds planted, one to barley, one to oats and one to spring wheat. Not sure I’ll see any production from the spring wheat, but we’ll see. Not many folks in this area are into growing grains, none that I have come across any way. So I’m figuring things out from info that is out there for the general growing audience. The Puget Sound Basin is a funny little area though, so I know I’m up for “failures” in some aspects and lots of tweaking in others.
Even after more years that I could count (or more like wanna count out loud) I still have yet to figure out what the heck other gardeners (in books) mean by “early spring” or even late spring, fall, summer, mid summer, they are all bizarre vague references to times I’m not sure really exist on a calendar. So even though the “directions” say early spring, and it isn’t spring yet, I went for it. One book said, “early spring, even as the snow is melting” Uh, yeah, that could be January or April here. Or even January AND April, so I just decided today was the day, before it rained so much more that I needed the canoe to get to the garden.
Because of the sogginess of the soil just under the surface of the beds, (my feet were in standing water several places on the path today while I worked) I just barely scuffed up the surface. (the beauty of raised beds) I didn’t have weeds to contend with because all the beds had been previously tilled and shaped, back when it was dry enough to handle the tractor and tiller.
Instead of doing as the book on small scale grain raising suggested, planting in tidy rows across the bed, I broadcast the seed for each. I had Elisabet help me cover the 4 foot wide beds with floating row cover. Mostly to keep the birds from eating all the grains and it will help the seed germinate and grab hold of the soil without being beat to death by the rains that will continue to come I’m sure.
All totaled it took two hours, a basic garden rock rake, a previously tilled garden bed, and a day that didn’t pour down rainm and a half pound of each of the grain seeds purchased from Johnny’s Select Seeds out of Maine, . The barley is the Conlon hulless variety, the wheat, Glenn Hard Red Spring Wheat and the oats, just an unnamed variety of hulless oats.
Well lunch break is very much done and I’ve got some more shifting to do down at the Hippy Hot Hut so that I can start some more seeds. I moved out more flats of onions and the lettuce and brassicas, took them out to the Center Hoop in the Market Garden. But more on those later. Have a great day Dear Reader, I’m enjoying the momentary absence of rain. Greatly.
