Wow, you must be a gluten for punishment!

I've never grown wheat, so I have nothing helpful to add. :)

Haha no, just experimenting. If nobody has tried this I'll post back at the end of the season and report!

After visiting Colonial Williamsburg and seeing how little wheat is actually harvested after threshing and winnowing the grains, I realized growing my own is not a viable option. But I love an experiment and would seriously enjoy seeing where this goes for you. Please keep us posted!

Gardengrl66,

I have grown a simple row of wheat as an ornamental, to use in dry flower arrangements.

Sitting on a combine and harvesting wheat was a job in my 20's. On the family farm and later, we grew oats as an annual hay crop for the critters. For soil improvement benefit, I have grown winter rye. That worked well but I had to take ground out of vegetable production during quite some time during the growing season to allow it much growth. It didn't like our winters well enough to make much growth otherwise.

Steve

I have grown wheat/winter rye in food plots but that was for deer lol. And that i broadcasted with a spreader. You didnt plant to dense from what ive done the more you plant the more you get. Wheat is kinda like rye so it aint picky so it dont need lots of nutrients or whatever, just a lil bit of nitrogen since its a grain. I dont know if your point was to harvest this or not, if so i have no clue lol. I can say for a fact deer like it

Deer, or "yard rats" as we call them, are NOT welcome to my wheat! I am going to see if I actually can get some grain out of it. We've got a tall fence around the veggie garden and so far it has kept the marauders out. Thanks for the feedback on the density. I read today that these green shoots are actually the "wheatgrass" one pays for in smoothies etc, and was actually thinking I could thin a little and eat that for some micro-nutrients!

Okay I have a midseason update on the wheat growing experiment. the plants are putting up seed heads, and they look pretty sizeable:

...and, in case I have drawn anyone out who has experience, a question: About one stalk in one hundred is covered in brownish black gunk, and the seed has not developed. I think it is a fungus. Is my whole crop at risk?

I am thinking of that ergot mold that would affect rye crops and cause hallucinations. Do I risk being burned for a witch if this gets into the final product?

Well, it doesn't look like it's on all the plants, at least.

Here is a 24 page pdf file on identifying diseases in cereal grains. I think that it should really answer your ID question. LINK

The way things are progressing/regressing in this country - I can't risk an opinion on witch burning!

Steve

Well thank you for that link! apparently my wheat is affected with ”loose smut” which is not a judgement on the quality of one’s fiction writing but rather a fungus, as I suspected. Unfortunately treatment is retrospective, ”treatment of seeds with fungicide” so nothing to be done for now. I pulled out the affected stems and hopefully it will not spread!

i grew wheat on a 30x20ft plot few years back

you need about 1 square meter to make one loaf bread.

You just about slew me with the ”loose smut” joke 😂 hoping for the best for your remaining crop!

OK this weekend was harvest time!

Wheat in the "field:"

And stacked on the covered back porch for drying:

Looks pretty good I think. Threshing/winnowing in a couple of weeks.

FUN!!

I think so. Wouldn't be fun of course if it was the old days and this had to get us through winter <g>

Lol. Be grateful!

Thank you for posting this followup. I was glad to see the shaffs of wheat drying. I'm wondering what you will do with the largess when you get the grains. ? Please let us know that too.

(I'm mentally already sprouting it and making sprouted wheat bread. )😃

So are you saying the results are shocks for you?

tj

funny! @CA Kate z9 I'm going to see how much I actually get, then either grind some of it at a time for bread, or if it is not very much just grind it all up at once. I have a hand-operated grain mill that we got last year when we were trying flour corn for the first time. (It made the best-tasting tortillas, probably because we had to work for it). If that doesn't grind the wheat fine enough I may invest in a motorized mill. Then, as you say, wheat bread is the ultimate goal!

Awesome. I bet that bread is going to taste so good when you finally bake it. What a gratifying experience, I would think.

I'll be interested to hear what you finally got and what you finally made. Wheat berries (grains) can be used in different ways if there isn't enough for flour. ( I like wheat berries made into a cooked breakfast cereal. )

That is cool! Thanks for posting updates.