Small Scale Grain & Beans: Grow, Process, & Save (Network)

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Comment by Heather K on October 3, 2010 at 3:24pm

Walter, good encouragement in your words for folks ready to make the commitment to being nourished by local foods:
“Start your own buying club and contract with farmers to grow grain for you. You will have to pay them up front so they have capital (capital acquisition is the real reason for the CSA model). However, by paying them up front you will likely be able to request the kinds of grain or other staples you want. You will also be sharing the risk too, but that is also part of the CSA model. The time to think about 2011 grain, beans, and other staples is now. That way you can source your capital and your producers well before planting season.”

Laura! Welcome to our networking group for growers of grains,dried beans & seeds! (And thanks for your volunteering to be part of the new TW Twog visionaries & volunteers.)
There are a lot of informative discussions posted here that share our collective wisdom & experience.
We have had events & talk in the past and as time allows will have more.
If you have a connection with a grower in this group and want more hands-on time on the land, you would be welcome to contact them about helping out.
Sometimes Krista Rome with the Backyard Grain & Bean Project can use a hand, so you could leave her a comment on her personal page and ask to be put on her volunteer email list. Also you could request Brian K at Inspiration Farm to add you to his educational email list. (leave message on their personal TW pages). (Walter has a website & possibly an email list).
The growing & harvesting season in our temperate climate is brief and a busy time for growers from 'can't see' to 'can't see' time of day.
Also welcome to new members Kate & John.
Looking forward to working together nourishing the land and caring for the soil life.

Comment by Laura J Sellens on October 1, 2010 at 6:51am

Hi there,
I'm sorry I'll miss the grain threshing on 10.10.10, I was looking forward to it for months, but I already committed to planting trees for the Perennial Project (with there be another?).

I'm wondering about the possibility of creating a CSA share program specifically for staples. Is that a possibility, you growers out there? I see it as a way to funnel some money toward you, toward grains and beans, and boost the scale of local production. What do you think?

Comment by David MacLeod on September 10, 2010 at 9:34pm

Reflections from Alongside the Threshing Machine by Rop Hopkins, Transition Culture
...The conversations taking place as different grains spilled from the thresher were about rediscovering something just about still within reach, but only just. Even if you get the husks off, how do you store grain so it doesn’t go musty, how do you keep the rats away from it, how do you mill it… a whole chain of knowledge, sophisticated knowledge acquired over thousands of years, rendered obsolete by cheap energy and the “biggering and biggering” of agriculture. One of the nuggets I gleaned was that if you harvest wheat and just pile the crop in a heap, and it gets rained on, it is ruined. If you ’stook’ it, make it into bundles which stand up, you can leave them out in the rain and they are fine. At Embercombe they couldn’t find anyone who knew how to do that…We often use the term ‘The Great Reskilling’. As I stood by the thresher at Embercombe, I realised that as well as the passing on of skills, we also need “The Great Practicing”, trying things out. We can learn a certain amount from books and from courses, but the best way to learn, the way that has you thinking around problems and solving them on the hoof, is by having a go. Even the small patches of grain that had been grown had been hugely instructive. It also gives you a sense of the infrastructure you need to create, the infrastructure that a local food economy needs. As Aldo Leopold put it, “who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering”. I found it very inspiring, in the sunshine, listening to whirring and clacking of the thresher, to watch some dedicated people who have picked up some of those seemingly useless parts and are trying to work out how to make them work again.

Comment by Brian Kerkvliet on September 7, 2010 at 9:37am

Here is a link to the short video that Paul made on my threshing equipment.
http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/video/2-grain-threshers
I will be trying it out on beans as soon as they are all dried.
It should work I did the conversions based on this article I found.
http://sustainableseedsystems.wsu.edu/nicheMarket/smallScaleThreshi...
I will let you all know how it works on beans and amaranth as soon as I test them. I harvested all the rest of the 16 varieties of beardless barley. I had to bring them in a little early in order to rescued them from the duck attack. Barley was planted on June 18th and harvested on Sep. 6th. roughly 2 and 1/2 months. One thinks that you could get 2 crops in a season from the same ground. Beans went in on the 12th of May and I harvested some on the 25th of Aug. and I am still waiting for others to finish up, that is about 3 months.
Also still waiting for the 28 varieties of hulless oats to finish up, they were planted on the 17th of June. Hope we get some more warm weather! Did anyone have good luck with there Bellingham Blue corn? Ours looks pretty sad.

Comment by Krista Rome on August 25, 2010 at 11:13am

Brian: Have you tried the chipper on beans yet? I should have read this before the first round of bean stomping. But there are more to come out of the field this weekend. I will save them unthreshed and give you a call so we can try it out. I really want to see if we can make it work with flax, too!!

Comment by Kate Clark on August 19, 2010 at 4:07pm

Yay! Beens!!

Comment by Brian Kerkvliet on August 19, 2010 at 12:57pm

My retrofitted chipper works for threshing rye and wheat. I am hopping it will work for beens as well. All are welcome to come try it out.

Comment by Heather K on August 19, 2010 at 11:59am

Grain/seed harvest day with Krista's 'Backyard Bean/Grain Project” was well attended on Tuesday afternoon working with flax and buckwheat. We delighted in observing all the other grains & beans soon to be ready for harvesting & threshed.

Anyone have a small thresher they are willing to share for a future harvest threshing day? (Let Krista or myself know)

Krista, your'e welcome to to text my cell phone anytime you head out to the field for harvesting in case I can meet you there...
I encourage other Everson/Nooksack/Goshen/Laurel/Rome neighbors request to be part of a text list for weather dependent harvesting/ threshing times.

Comment by Heather K on August 14, 2010 at 12:41pm

Perennial Grains were harvested by humans long before our annual grain crops. The Land Institute in Kansas, started by Wes Jackson, has been doing research on this for over 2 decades.
Regionally, Stephen Jones, with Mount Vernon's Extension Research Center, has also been doing research on the perennial grains.
Brief video below, worth viewing just to see how long the roots of one of the Land Institutes perennial wheat is!
http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/06/perennial-grains-are-set-to-transf...

Comment by Krista Rome on August 4, 2010 at 12:08pm

Walter, WOW, you really take liberties with recommended planting dates! I panicked about getting my wheat in the ground in time and got it in early April, I believe. Anyhow, it's hard and dry (2 of 3 varieties) and I started harvesting yesterday. I am happy to know one can plant late and harvest late, on the bean schedule. I wonder if the yield is as good? I don't water at all so spring plantings are good.

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