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

Comment

Comment by Krista Rome on July 30, 2010 at 10:52pm

Hey folks. Just curious when my spring-planted wheat will be ready to harvest. Yes, I know how to tell when I'm looking at it, but it's not ready yet and I'm just curious how much longer it might be. I think I planted the wheat and barley around april 1. The flax and garbanzos are drying down...hope to have them harvested before the mid-august rains hit so we can do all the threshing in the field (fingers crossed).

Comment by Nick Spring on June 19, 2010 at 9:15am

hey everyone,
Going out to our bean patch on Sunday. Carpooling from Bellingham meets at D and Girard at 9 Am. Come help us weed this sizable crop of many different varieties on dry and pole beans. I'll eventually post varieties we are growing if people are interested. Contact me at nick@bellinghamurbangardens.org or 360-610-3700 if you would like to join.

Comment by Heather K on June 9, 2010 at 1:40am

Hi Krista! Great Grain & Bean work party event! I hope many folks show up with their gloves in hand, and hulu hoes if they have!
I hope you will also consider doing a weekDay late afternoon or evening event in the future.

Oh these summer weekEnds are so few and full of so many community events! (I may not be able to attend this weekend time.)

If you want to invite a broader audience for a future event, I could assist you in posting it under the Events page on this Transition Whatcom site.
Lets match schedules sometime so I can come out with my hulu hoe.

Comment by Krista Rome on June 8, 2010 at 10:22am

Please join us for a work party to support the Backyard Beans & Grains Project on saturday the 19th, from 1:30-4 pm. It will be mainly hand-weeding and hoeing, and maybe a little transplanting of the later grains (amaranth & millet). Bring gloves, hoes (hula hoes are best) and boots if it's soggy out. Please RSVP me so I can arrange carpool or meet up spot and know how many snacks to bring! 224-4757 or kristamrome@yahoo.com

Comment by Krista Rome on May 13, 2010 at 5:54pm

Hi All, sorry to have been out of the loop, massive planting in my grain and bean trial grounds the past few weeks has taken precedence. What fabulous weather, the beans are in two to three weeks ahead of last year so I look forward to harvesting under less dewy conditions, hopefully! I have heaps of seed kits still, if anyone knows anyone who they want to get hooked up, on the bandwagon. Neat labeled packages, nine in all, a combo of legumes and grains. Yeah, a little late for some of the grains, but I do have lots of different beans already packaged and I'd sell the packs for a dollar each if someone wanted a variety. It sort of has to be worth my effort to meet up with them so ten would be a good minimum.
I am all out of beans this year except the ones I've got packaged in small packs, but I still want to get them out into the hands of the people! If anyone has good networking/marketing/outreach skills, let me know, haha, I am finding I am more of a true farmer that way, just want to do the growing, the research, and talk about it alot. Email me with Qs and I'll do my best to help.

Comment by danb2 on May 9, 2010 at 8:24pm

An important aspect of growing sustainably is to be able to plant several crops in rotation per year. In the North of Hokkiado traditionally, many years ago rotations sometimes took 12 years... in the south of Japan there were often 4 crops per year and the rotation started over the very next year... To discover our best rotation practice for here, we may need to find early maturing and/or fast maturing varieties so there is time in the year to mature another crop after harvest of the grain. It might be necessary to interplant between rows of grain with say peas or beans. Room for much experimentation here....

Another is to find varieties we can plant in the fall and if they fail we can plant them -the same or different varieties- in the spring to cover the failed places.

Related to the above is that the timing of a planting varies with the completely different conditions found each year so we need to find varieties that are tolerant of planting "at the wrong" time....

I am also looking at disease reaction -- I am finding that I have disease susceptible, tolerant, and apparently resistant varieties with regard to leaf stripe rust.

These are the ideas that drive my exploration of so many accessions.

I planted 110 accessions of wheat the day after Thanksgiving. A week ago two had heads almost completely out of the boot and now are. Today, several more are emerging from the boot with many more about to emerge. That said, some are still just nondescript grasses.

Several accessions at another researchers' plot are headed out.

What stage is your wheat?

What rotation will you use?

Are you interplanting and with what? Will you plant/harvest more than one crop at the same time or plant/harvest at different times?

Comment by Heather K on May 9, 2010 at 2:26pm

Please post your follow-up comments on the name or vision of the grain/bean/seed/grow group at: http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/smallscalegraingrowingbeans...

Which is a Discussion to organize ideas on our “Group Name History & Purpose/Vision Statements Discussion”.

This will help reduce the email flow for members not interested in this topic.

However, if you are interested in following this discussion, remember to sign on to TW, go to this groups specific discussion, and scroll down & click 'Follow' to receive email on new comments.

Comment by Heather K on May 9, 2010 at 2:06pm

Well said Brian!. Would ideas like “Homegrown” or “Human-Scale” be an accurate & inclusive phrasing that might increase clarity over the relativity of the words small-scale vs large-scale?
Many of us have been influenced by the words & philosophy of Farmer Masanobu Fukuoka ( 1913-2008) who worked both as a plant pathology researcher and a natural farmer. He learned to observe the complex patterns of nature which we ourselves are part of, and he did research and grew crops with higher yields using “natural farming” methods than the chemical agri-business methods. (Resources listed at: “Recommended Books....” discussion: http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/smallscalegraingrowingbeans...

Many of us also share also the same concerns as expressed by Frances Moore Lappe (as written in the introduction of Fukuoka-sensei republished classic book - “The One Straw Revolution – An Introduction to Natural Farming” )- “..pesticide use per acre has quadrupled since my youth (ie 1970's), and large-scale, fossil-fuel, corporate-monopoly-dependent farming continues to displace traditional practices worldwide.....”.
This group welcomes any farmers who are attempting to brake away from these these harmful practices, no matter what size land or farm they are the caretakers for.

*** Please post follow up comments on this topic at: *** “Group Name History & Purpose/Vision Statements Discussion”- http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/smallscalegraingrowingbeans...

I have initiated this separate discussion in our group since to date we have at least 9 comment on this topic, and a few new members have posted.
Those who want to dialogue on why we chose the words we did, and request attention in having new words/ideas considered can post in our separate discussion.. (This will reduce the emails to members not interested....Remember if you Do want to follow the discussion to sign on and click “Follow”). I'm inviting the initiating members to please 'follow' the discussion, even if you don't have the time to post your thoughts.

Per Comment by Brian Kerkvliet May 9th
I would have to say that small scale is of BIG importance. Production issues are defiantly different for someone that hand plants, harvests, threshes and stores their crop, from someone who uses equipment to do the work. There are many methods for all of these tasks that are scale appropriate. This is one of the things that we are eager to learn and share on this group. Sure we can learn many things from farmers with large tracts of land that use conventional equipment and practices. However I also see a desire and need to have a lot more people growing small amounts of staple crops in a diversified rotation on their lot or small acreage. Another reason for this group is to help empower more people to grow grains and beans, by sharing what varieties work well for our region, what tools are needed for their scale, what kind of yields can be expected and how to process those yields with the simplest of equipment.
There is also a need to better understand the benefits of grains and legumes in crop rotation where the straw and plant stubble is left in the field adding much needed organic material to the soil and building nitrogen for future crops to use.
Also experimentation with no-till methods can be easier applied with small plots then acre and larger tracts. The more people trying different approaches, the faster we all learn together.............”

Per Comment by Walter Haugen on April 24, 2010 at 3:36pm
Endless discussions have their place, but don't forget to actually grow some dry beans and grains this year.

Comment by Brian Kerkvliet on May 9, 2010 at 9:01am

I would have to say that small scale is of BIG importance. Production issues are defiantly different for someone that hand plants, harvests, threshes and stores their crop, from someone who uses equipment to do the work. There are many methods for all of these tasks that are scale appropriate. This is one of the things that we are eager to learn and share on this group. Sure we can learn many things from farmers with large tracts of land that use conventional equipment and practices. However I also see a desire and need to have a lot more people growing small amounts of staple crops in a diversified rotation on their lot or small acreage. Another reason for this group is to help empower more people to grow grains and beans, by sharing what varieties work well for our region, what tools are needed for their scale, what kind of yields can be expected and how to process those yields with the simplest of equipment.
There is also a need to better understand the benefits of grains and legumes in crop rotation where the straw and plant stubble is left in the field adding much needed organic material to the soil and building nitrogen for future crops to use.
Also experimentation with no-till methods can be easier applied with small plots then acre and larger tracts. The more people trying different approaches, the faster we all learn together. One such method of no-till practice is the use of seed balls. We will be having a Spring Fling a seed ball event and talk about the practice, methods and benefits of seed ball sowing here at Inspiration Farm on Tuesday. More can be found on this event page.
http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/spring-fling-a-seed-ball-and

Comment by Heather K on May 8, 2010 at 11:27am

The talk on small grain growing by Farmer Dr. Steve Jones was right here in Whatcom County! Laura, we are the folks involved & who attended the talk with the Skagit speaker, Dr. Steve. He has come up a few times, and after the March visit, a core of us decided to create this group for networking with local grain & bean growers.
Brian Kerkvliet's farm is right off of the Laurel Rd, and blends both permaculture principles with biodynamic farming wisdom.
Laura, if you have connections with other county growers who are or plan to grow grain & beans, you could invite them to network with us, and they would be welcomed to join in the talks & tour the next time Farmer Brian brings up Farmer Dr. Steve to be in Whatcom county.
Skagit also has some tools they will someday bring up to loan,...possibly a thresher?
Researcher & Farmer Krista Rome has volunteered to facilate this group, but as it's May planting time, most of us are outside planting and do most of our networking in person or off season. Thanks for joining in with the group Laura, and also for your leadership both with Sustainable Connections, and attending the food-with-a-purpose potluck. We welcome your presence!
There are other farmer/growers on this network too, but most of us outside and not yet caught up with our online readings.
Whatcom Wheat will have a comeback!

Comment by Laura Ridenour: Hi. I just saw this event that happened in Skagit. The folks involved might be a good resource. Small Grains Talk At Inspiration Farm....

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