I planted the rows a bit too close together. This made it hard to weed between the rows, and I think the weeds competed for water and held the corn back a bit. Doing this again I’d make every second or third row wide enough to comfortably walk between so that I could reach in and weed. I think this would increase yield quite a lot.
Similarly we had a heat wave while the cobs were growing and I think the soil dried out a bit. It seems like corn really likes water, so it’s worth making sure you have a good sprinkler setup.
I picked the corn when the beards were starting to look dry. I shucked it and laid the cobs out to dry on a cloth in the garage. After about a week the kernels felt quite hard. It was fairly easy at that point to detach the kernels from the cobs. What worked best was to remove one kernel, then work along in rows by pushing the next kernel down into the empty space with fingertips. I understand that you can also get devices designed to do this, like a metal ring that you grip in your hand, but I didn’t find it necessary.
The final yield was about 2kg/4lb of dried corn from a 2×4 meter patch.
But now the interesting part – the pictures! I was really stunned how lovely this corn looks. It is easily the most impressive thing I have grown. Some ears were deep ruby red through to black, some were speckled with flecks of red, orange and yellow, some had random blue and white kernels. My favourite were the pale yellow, blue and white ones with a pearl-like sheen.
Here’s some exciting news: I just spent a morning harvesting our first patch of wheat! Sweat, itch, straw and dust aside I am pretty excited to make the first loaf. At a very rough estimate I think we might have a yield around 1kg wheat per square meter so the 40m2 patch might have produced enough grain to make a years worth of bread. I’ll update this when the final count is in.
I used a beastly sharp sickle, and good gloves. I can see this thing lopping a finger right off.
First I tried cutting quite high to just get the heads but there was a lot of variation in the height of each stalk so I soon started just cutting at the base, grabbing bundles and sawing through them.
I laid down armfuls as I went, then gathered them into stooks at the end. The stooks were just to be romantic, I just chucked most of it on a tarp under cover. I’ll let it dry for a week before the next step.
Next is threshing, then winnowing. Threshing just means smacking the wheat, straw and all until the grain comes loose. Winnowing is separating the grain from the chaff, straw, bits of earwig and so on. There’s still work to do figuring out the best method for this! I did a small batch just to test by filling a feed bag and smacking it into the wall, then pouring the contents back and forth between two buckets so the wind carried chaff away. After doing this manually I firmly believe that growing and processing grains is the reason mankind invented machinery.
Finally, here it is – my very first loaf made from home grown wheat. Tastes delicious and feels very satisfying.
I’ve come to realise that I’m in love with polenta (which if you don’t know, is a kind of porridge or paste made from cooked corn meal). It is good for you, delicious, texturally satisfying, and goes in a surprising range of dishes – from appetisers to desserts. So when I coincidentally read mister meatballs post about growing your own, then the salt’s writeup about the flavour of heritage varieties, I knew I had to try growing it myself.
The first step in any new project is to read up, so here’s what I learned before putting anything into practice!
Yield
It’s always hard to estimate how much of a crop you’ll get when most figures give bushels per acre and assume farm equipment and so on but from some internet searches I think it’s possible I’ll get 2kg of dried corn from my 8-10 square meter patch. I could be waaaay off so it will be interesting to see how much I get and how long it lasts. It seems like you need a little more space than the typical suburban garden if you want to grow a whole years supply but I will update here when the harvest is in.
Varieties
There are a number of types of corn but the varieties that I’ve seen sold so far can be divided into sweet corn, popping corn, flint corn and dent corn. Dent corn (or field corn) is used to make softer flours for things like tortillas and fine cornflour. Flint corn seems to be the variety most often used for polenta. Sweet corn and popping corn are used as the name suggests – sweet corn is the variety that we eat fresh on the cob. Sweet and popping corn are said not to be as good for making flour although my dad tried making tortillas using popping corn for the masa and was happy with the results. Of course, within these varieties are lots of different types. Floriania Red is said over at Mother Earth News to be good for polenta but after I saw photos of Painted Mountain corn at Easy Living The Hard Way, I had to get some. If you’re in the US, Amazon stock this variety.It isn’t exactly easy to find the seeds in Australia so please share any sources you might have!
Growing
Corn is usually planted in spring but check the recommendations & conditions for your local area. Here in South Australia we are still getting a bit of rain but a warm spring overall so I decided to start planting! The first step was preparing a garden bed to grow the corn. Corn likes rich, loose soil so I turned the dirt over with a mattock, then sprinkled over some gypsum to improve drainage as the patch had a little clay. I also added some organic fertiliser with added potash, then raked the beds level and worked the fertiliser in. Corn is pollinated by the wind transferring pollen between plants, so it is best planted in multiple rows fairly close together. The usual recommendation seems to be 30cm (1 foot) between rows and 10cm (4in) between plants in the row. The rows will be thinned later to 20cm between plants (8in). The initial double spacing is to allow for some seeds not sprouting.
I tapped in a stake at each end of the row, and used a string line to get the spacing right. I dug a furrow about 2cm (4/5 in) deep with a hoe and dropped the seeds into the furrow, then filled it and patted down. After sowing the seed I gave the patch a long water – the soil will need to stay damp constantly until the seeds sprout (then watered regularly afterwards too). I read one recommendation to soak the seeds overnight before planting but to be frank I was impatient! We’ll see how it works out.
Here’s my stakes and string line, with the second row underway
Week 1
The corn started to sprout after about 10 days. I scattered around some organic snail pellets as I’ve been told those new green shoots are very tempting for slugs and snails.
Week 3
Here we are 3 weeks after planting. The corn is rocketing along, maybe a hand width high. I thinned out the rows today – I couldn’t bring myself to kill all the babies so I tried transplanting a few of the small shoots to the end of the rows where they had more room – a few days on and they seem to be doing fine! Time will tell if they end up as healthy as the others.
Week 7
The corn is is probably a bit slower than expected at this point because we’ve had quite a few unusually cold spells, but when the sun is out it shoots up noticeably. It I have given it a drink of liquid fertiliser and a sprinkle of an organic fertiliser pellet. It’s hard getting between the rows to weed!
Week 10
Seriously rocketing up over the last few weeks, my corn has now flowered and is developing ears. The flowers are on top while the ears start showing up as tufts of ‘beard’ along the stalks. A common recomendation is to tap the stals at this stage to make sure pollen drifts down to pollinate the ears.
I’ve been interested in growing wheat for a long time – it just seems to be something you should do if you’re into baking and doing things ‘from scratch’ so with winter rains here and the offer of a spare patch in my mums veggie garden if I helped clear it, I have just sown my first crop! As you’ll see, this is just a test patch for now with perhaps 20 square meters of land. If it works out, I can use a much larger patch for planting. We just scattered the wheat by hand (broadcasting) so it isn’t in nice neat rows or anything and we just used whatever variety the local health food shop sold for sprouting.
I have a lot to learn but here’s a few useful facts I’ve uncovered:
Wheat yield per acre varies a lot depending on irrigation, variety, soil, climate etc but can be in the order of 1.5t per acre which is around 370g (2/3lb) per square meter. Depending on usage, a person might need 20kg (40lb) of grain for a years supply. This means to be completely self sufficient you’d want around 55 square meters sown with wheat per person in the household. Ideally wheat should be rotated instead of planting the same patch every year, so you’d want to either use the patch for something else the year after or have several patches you plant out in turn. Of course you don’t have to grow your own entire years supply – I’m going to be happy if I get enough for some loaves and pizzas out of our first harvest.
I found suggestions that it is good to plant multiple varieties together. If some varieties are less resistant to certain pests or diseases there’s a reduced risk of losing a whole crop.
Seeds should be sown about 5cm (2in) deep. You can scatter the seeds over raked soil, then fork or rake them in to around that depth. They need water straight away, then at least once per month if it isn’t raining.
Wheat germinates in around a week and is ready to harvest after 5-6 months. It’s ready to harvest when the grains are hard.
Different wheat varieties, surprisingly called spring or winter wheat, are be sown in winter or spring. Winter wheat needs a cold period to germinate properly. Winter wheat has more gluten than spring wheat, so it would make stretchier doughs that hold their shape and rise more.
There are also ‘red’ or ‘white’ varieties, red varieties apparently having a more prominent ‘whole grain’ taste than white varieties which are more mild in flavour.
4 months later
The wheat has grown well through winter and now has lots of decent sized ears! I expected it to be a bit taller but as can be seen, most plants are only knee height. Maybe this is the variety we bought, or maybe it will continue to grow?
6 months later
The wheat has started to dry out! The ears are starting to sag and the grains are almost crunchy when you bite into them (and they taste great). We are harvesting next weekend.
To test a few grains, you grind the wheat head first into your handThen gently blow away the husksVoila!
