Growing Our Own Grain

We got the rest of the corn done.  It was a much larger patch than we realized and it took a while.  Everybody chipped in.  My husband cut the stalks off at the ground and then kids and I pulled the cobs off.  We threw a few stalks to Christina and beefy because they were hanging around looking sorry, but the rest went into the shed for storage.

I plowed up a few rows to plant some winter wheat.  We don't really have the land to raise our own grain — it's the only real staple that we continue to buy — but I wanted to raise some, maybe only symbolically.  These were the rows that had the onions.  We found this wheel hoe in the barn after my in-laws passed away.  My husband attached the cultivator prongs and I was amazed how effectively it tilled up the area, just as good as a roto-tiller.

I think these old tools are amazing.  They are fast, efficient, and zero-carbon.  I've seen tools like this before, but it feels special that this tool is old and belonged to my in-laws.  I got three rows tilled up in ten minutes.  My bicepts will be sore, but not bad.

For seed we used the organic wheat we bought from the Co-op.  I spread about two cups over the three rows.

As I sprinkled the seed, I thought, "hey, I'm sowing wheat!"  How many times have I read biblical stories about sowing wheat?  How many hymns have I song about "seed, scattered and sown"?  But I've never done it.  It was easy just sprinkling the seed, but because it's my first time, I have no expectation how it will work out.  Will the seed germinate?  Will it produce?  Will we be able to harvest it without losing all the grain?

Jesus told a story of a farmer sowing grain and some of it falls on rocky soil, some on shallow soil, some on good soil, etc.  But he didn't include the grain that falls in the goofy place because the farmer didn't know what she was doing.  Well, I guess there were no goofy farmers; I'm learning things that everybody knew back then.

Jesus also told a story of harvesting ten fold or a hundred fold.  If we just recover our two cups, I'll be happy, but maybe we'll get a hundred fold harvest of 200 cups of wheat — that's enough grain for a month or two!