Heading

Growing heirloom winter wheat has been such an interesting experiment. Grains are an excellent rotation for any cropping system, as they build soil and feed microorganisms with their extensive roots. They prevent erosion, cover the earth, and provide a great deal of biomass that can be used as mulch or compost material. There's very little pest pressure.  And, if you're lucky, you get a crop on top of all that.

Our wheat crop, which was 'lodging' (or falling over) has righted itself and is now 'heading.' The plants generally go through an aggressive growing process in early spring, then form a type of leaf called a 'flag,' which is easily seen in the above photo. The flag leaf produces a shaft wherein the grain begins reproduction. Those flowers you see are self-pollinating, and after the pollination process, seeds will form.

I grew up near farming communities on the east coast, but I don't ever remember seeing grain. I know very little about it. I imagine if you grow up in the mid-west, you're very used to seeing these crops. I have had a good time researching how wheat grows; I've needed to consult the experts at every stage. It's evident that my crop is heading quite a bit earlier than wheat usually does in our state, early April being the common time. We had very warm temperatures for about two weeks in early February, which I think triggered the plants to begin reproduction. February 15 is our last frost date, so I'm hoping that it won't get too cold now (temperatures have dropped!), and that the seeds can withstand that chill. If they do withstand it, this early heading is a great thing, because I might just get a small crop in before I plant out tomatoes in May. Normally wheat isn't ready to harvest until late May or early June here.

When the plant has set seed, it will start to brown and dry up. Then I will know it is time to harvest, sheave, and then thresh. Of course, the right amount of water is very important now, so I'm glad we have an irrigation system, as it hasn't rained here for the entire month of February, and actually I don't remember getting any significant moisture in January either. 

Meanwhile, I'm in the process of potting up over 200 sunflower seedlings. I may have overdid, just a little.

The Wheat is Lodging

When you grow wheat, you begin to see what an important crop it is in our country. Google-research a problem with, say, kale, and you'll get a bunch of websites written by folks just like you and me. Google-research a problem with wheat, and BAM: You've got the big guns weighing in, from the USDA to the Land Grant Universities. According to the USDA, wheat ranks third among US field crops in planted acreage, production, and gross receipts. (You can guess the top two crops, I imagine.) However, wheat planting and production are actually down this year, due to lower returns and changes in government programs, as well as increased competition from global wheat markets. 

Again according to the USDA, wheat, along with corn, soybeans, cotton, and potatoes, accounts for about 80% of all pesticide use in our country. 

This makes you wanna find your local, organic wheat farm, doesn't it? It sure does for me. It also sure as hell solidifies my resolve to continue baking our own bread with said wheat.

Meanwhile I'm enjoying our own wheat-growing experiment. There are some definite downsides. The main one is space, which is certainly a limiting factor. The ratio of biomass-to-product is quite high; the huge stalks take up quite a bit of room for such little return. You have to plant a LOT of wheat to get any kind of poundage at the end of the process. It's also a long-growing crop; I planted these seeds in October, and the plant probably won't be ready for harvesting until late May, at the earliest. This is an issue when I want to get summer crops in the ground at the beginning of May at the latest. Some crops, such as potatoes, should go in in February. In order to do that, I'm going to have to cut some of the wheat early.

There are lots of positives to growing wheat, though, not the least of which is how beautiful it is. It couldn't be any more GREEN.

Other benefits: The aforementioned biomass is actually a boon, as it can be used in several ways; as fodder for the chickens, or as a mulch for my summer plants. Finding organic straw is difficult, and I've basically made my own. It has acted as a wonderful cover crop over the winter, mixed with crimson clover as an understory plant. Live roots in the ground year-round really promote soil life and health. I mean, just LOOK at all the sunlight that's been captured in these beautiful leaves.

Here's another downside, though, at least in my garden. My wheat is starting to lodge.

Lodging is when the wheat falls over. It's happening in every one of my beds. The outside rim of each bed is fine, beautifully upright, and then the inner portions have keeled over. There are many reasons this could have happened, but I don't see that any are applicable here. The plants could be suffering from excess nitrogen (never a problem in my beds, trust me when I tell you that all my soil nutrient tests come back deficient in nitrogen, which is why I planted clover too - but the nitrogen nodules in the roots of the clover won't be available to nearby plants until after I cut down the clover and let the roots rot in the soil). They could be suffering from a deficiency of potassium (though my soil tests say this nutrient level is ok). They could have fallen from high winds, which I suppose is possible, but honestly, are our winds higher than those in the Great Plains? I don't think so. It hasn't been particularly wet this winter. Interseeding clover is supposed to help with this issue, and I did that. 

The only thing I can figure is, it's the variety of wheat. I planted all heirloom varieties, wheat that could be considered ancient and isn't used any longer on big commercial farms; Emmer, Sonora, and Red Fife. And from my reading, it does sound as though the lodging problem has been bred out of the newer strains, along with a lot of the nutrition. Honestly, I don't WANT to grow modern wheat. I want to grow the good, heirloom stuff.

I am cheered by reading that the lodging may not hurt the seed crop, if it happens before the seed develops. But I do think stems of wheat lying down and collecting water is going to invite rot; and in fact, some of the stems have some discoloration. So, this crop may end up being fodder and straw sooner than I expected, and I'll just have to keep buying my wheat berries from the local farmer. 

Have any of you ever grown wheat? How have you dealt with lodging?

Wheat Crop Update

This wheat growing experiment is sure interesting. Some of the wheat germinated right away, and some patches were pretty bare. I re-seeded those bare patches, and in some cases the seeds germinated but in some they did not. I can't figure out why: It wasn't species-specific and it wasn't soil-specific and it wasn't what-crop-grew-there-before-specific. So who knows? The bottom line is that some beds are very full and others are not. In all cases, though, the wheat is now tillering. 

A 'tiller' is nothing more than a stem in grasses, and refers to all stems after the initial cotyledon shoot (remember, grass is a monocot, and has only one cotyledon leaf or shoot). Tillers have the ability to be seed-bearing, so it makes sense that you want good tillering. If the wheat is planted close together, it will grow more in height before tillering, but if the wheat has plenty of room, it'll tiller early and get wider rather than taller. It's a fine line between a thick stand and a too-thick stand. If you google 'tillering in wheat' you'll get a bunch of academic articles about how much tillering you should have, how to convert that into bushels-per-acre, etc. However, since this is not a crop we intend to sell (and there's not enough of it anyway), I'm not going to try to mold the wheat to my specifications. Rather, I'm just going to watch and see what it does. And it's interesting to watch, that's for sure. I caught the cat in one of the beds eating the tops of the wheat one day; who knows who else is snacking on it. 

I'm growing crimson clover in with it, and in with everything in fact, to try to get some nitrogen into the soil (*see final note below) and also provide coverage (living mulch) and biomass. The birds ate a LOT of the clover seed I put down, but there's still some coming up in nearly every bed.

Speaking of birds, it became apparent that the sparrows were eating all our salad greens - kale and chard especially. They'd sit on the edge of these pots and tear the leaves off from the edges. I finally had to put some netting over them to keep them out - they were really destroying our crop of winter greens.

I had never seen the birds do that before. I've seen goldfinches eat sunflower leaves, but that's the only time I've seen birds (other than chickens) eat greens. Guess they need salad, too.

I decided to minimize my losses in the beds where the wheat germinated badly, and put all the brassicas in the ground. They were really at the limits of their gallon pots, and I was having to feed them fish emulsion every week to keep them going, and the squirrels had gotten to them (especially the cauliflower) and eaten the tender centers. So I went ahead and put them all out in the beds, where the wheat was sparse. This makes me feel so much better. Keeping them in pots was an interesting experiment, but they are not heading the way they should, and I think that's due to the fact that the pots were too small.

cabbage and leeks. the cabbage is really looking nice.

Brussels sprouts in the back, cauliflower (probably hopeless at this point) in with the still-flowering Thai basil. You can see I've been lining the paths with burlap bags from the coffee roastery - I intend to cover these bags with leaves from ours and my neighbors trees, to prevent weeds from coming up between the beds.

Broccoli, looking pretty leggy

However some other things are doing just fine in pots. Beets, carrots, and greens - all looking well. I discovered some fat green caterpillars on my carrots the other day, and removed them all (seven in total) and gave them to the chickens. I forgot to take a picture. They were not swallowtail caterpillars - if they were, I probably would have relocated them to the fennel. They were green throughout and I can't figure out what they were. Any ideas? 

The shallots, garlic, and peas are all doing wonderfully, and I just ate my first peas this morning while out weeding. Delish. Spring peas are good but autumn peas are just as tasty! 

braising greens

A final note about the wheat: I'm growing heirloom varieties, so yield should be about 30 pounds per 1000 sq feet. If I get 30 pounds, I'll be absolutely delighted. I expect more like 10. I planted three different kinds - Red Fife, Emmer, and Sonora White. The Sonora is a soft wheat and the others are hard wheats. Hard wheats generally have more protein (good for bread making) and soft wheats less protein (better for pastas and cakes). 

A final note about clover: As you most likely know, plants in the legume family (Fabaceae) will take nitrogen out of the air and fix it into nodules at its roots. In order to have that happen, there needs to be plenty of air down in the roots (lots of organic matter will provide good aggregation, NOT tilling), as that's where the nitrogen from the air comes from. The nodules are formed by a bacteria and the plant develops the nodules to protect the nitrogen-rich bacteria and keep it for its own use. When the plant produces fruit, it uses that nitrogen up. So if you want the plants to provide nitrogen for your soil, do not allow these plants to set fruit. For instance, you plant beans or peas, you eat the fruit of them, you've eaten the nitrogen that the roots collected, and that's fine! But if you cut them down before the plant fruits, that nitrogen, in nodules on the roots, will break down in the soil and enter the microbial cycle, being eaten and then pooped out etc, and will be available to the next crop you put in there. It's also helpful to put the green material that you cut down (the shoots and leaves) of the legume on top of the soil, to break down and provide nitrogen that way too.

If you grow peas next to broccoli, say, can the legume roots share nitrogen with the broccoli plant? Not really. The nitrogen is bound up in the plant until it is cut down. At that point, the nitrogen becomes available to anything else left nearby. Also, if there is a fungal association formed between the broccoli and pea roots, it's possible the nitrogen would be shared that way, but it's unlikely. So! You're only providing nitrogen to the environment AFTER the plant is cut down. Not during. During, the nitrogen is only available to the legume, for the most part. And if you let the plant form fruit, the nitrogen has been mostly used up (though putting green matter down in your beds will always allow for some nitrogen to get back in the soil; not mixing it in, mind, but just laying on top to decompose). 

I'd love to know what autumn/fall veg and fruits you all are growing, and how they are doing, regardless of climate. Please feel free to share in the comments!

Halloween Surprises

Happy Halloween to all. It's a bright, clear day in Walnut Creek, and will be a chilly but gorgeous night for the kiddos out trick or treating. We expect our usual horde of trick or treaters tonight; Mom's bringing over a beef stew cooked in a pumpkin, I'm baking fresh bread, one of our kids has rehearsal, the other is possibly either having friends over or going to a friends house - so my main entertainment will be eating good food and looking at the little guys who come to the front door.

Meanwhile, there's been all sorts of interesting things and surprises happening around here. One is the above persimmons - a neighbor had an excess from her trees, so we promptly picked up a bin-full. We wanted to make jam, but it seems that it's not totally safe to water-bath can this particular fruit (acidity is questionable), so there is a dearth of recipes, even if we just want to freeze it after making it. We found one from a middle-eastern woman that seemed promising, but used cornstarch to thicken, and the end result was terrible. That was sad, after Tom put in all the work of making jam. I'm going to try again with some pectin, though persimmons are naturally high in pectin, so maybe I'll skip that addition. We also wanted to make Hoshigaki, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. 

In the garden, I've been struggling with getting the wheat to germinate. In some areas, it's doing incredibly well:

... while in others, it's extremely spotty.

I think it has a lot to do with temperature and water. This is winter wheat, so it needs cooler temps, and last week we were in the 90's for days on end. Plus, drip irrigation can be tricky with germination, so sometimes the seeds rely on me to get them damp, and sometimes I forget or lose track of what I've done and when. So I'm hoping, now that we've cooled down, and the winter rains are on the way (fingers crossed), we'll start to see a thicker stand of wheat. 

"Stand of Wheat." Gosh, if that doesn't sound all Pa Ingalls. Next I might hit you with "the wheat is now tillering," and that will be a secret thrill for me, probably not for you.

Leeks, garlic, shallots, peas, spinach, kale, lettuce, chard, beets, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts: All doing well. Had my first crop of greens today in a frittata for lunch. And just saw my first pea on the vine, though that deer that crashed through ate the tops off most of them. That's ok, they're recovering.

We've also had some fun surprises at the water feature too. A couple of days ago, I was sitting near the bee hive, watching the activity there, when I noticed a new-to-me bird land for a drink. After some research, I determined it was a Hermit Thrush.

image credit: Isabel Cutler

It's an extraordinarily adorable little bird. 

Then, this morning, as I was out brushing egg sacs off the kale (cabbage butterflies; controlling their caterpillars is keeping me busy this year), I heard an interesting new bird call - sharp and short. I quietly skulked around to the water feature and there, in the tree above, was a Northern Flicker (red-shafted western). 

image credit: cdbtx

This bird was not exactly adorable - it was BIG and LOUD and striking!!! Wow! 

Some research tells me that these birds are both common here, though the Hermit Thrush only in winter: We've never seen them in our yard, so having them here now is very exciting! Both eat insects and also some berries.

I did have one surprise this past weekend which was not so great. I opened up the smaller compost bin (the one I call the worm bin because I add worms every couple of years - it's not big enough to get hot enough to break stuff down) to dig out the worm castings to sprinkle on the wheat beds. As I began, a couple of rats leapt out and streaked into the neighbors yard. I thought that was pretty gross, but continued my chore. When I was near the back I uncovered a baby rat nest with three newborns in it. I don't like rats, and I've put out those snapping traps to kill them when their numbers are too great, but it was another thing altogether to disrupt a nest and put babies in danger. I know it doesn't make sense, but I closed up the compost bin and went into the garden and sobbed my heart out. Ugh. 

So, not all surprises are good. I went ahead with my fall cleanup and made a HUGE pile of branches to continue my effort to attract snakes. We need something to take care of the rat population around here and I certainly don't want it to be me, no thank you, I don't want to kill babies of any kind. I guess it's that old adage that if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. 

Anyway. I don't want to leave you with an image of rats, even if it is Halloween, and I don't want you to think I'm an evil baby-rat-killer either. So, the bread just came out of the oven and I'll bribe you with images of that, instead. 

Hope you have a fun holiday!