Gardening and Grains

I am far from an expert on any specific genre. One of the things my family is looking at doing this fall and into winter is to begin planning for next years harvest. This may seem strange for the average home gardener, however, we are revamping our whole plan. We are adding a few raised garden beds and garden space. We are also trying new seeds with new varieties.

We made use of a deal from MIGardener. At the end of the season, he runs a BOGO deal on his $.99 seed packets. My sister had great results this year, and I am going to use them this year coming up. We also did a little trading with each other for more varieties as well. MIGardener is youtuber with many videos on gardening, and has the website MIGardener.com.

One of the areas we are very interested in was grains. Now, bear in mind, I currently live on a very small parcel of land. We are setting on .11 acre. We were recently surveyed so that we could ensure we were not encroaching on anyone else’s property. Some of our goals for next year is running grain corn and broomcorn. This does seem odd, but I am curious about running grain corn until the fall, and based on growth, save seeds from the best developing stalks. The rest I would like to mill down to corn flour. I have grown wheat before, but this was more wheat grass. It was for the chickens.

I also thought broomcorn would be interesting do to a few unique properties. How many people, in today’s world of excess, would be able to make something as simple as a broom? Imagine the small comfort in being able to sweep. They are also a good pollination screen between different varieties of corn.

My initial thought are grains storing over the winter if fairly easy, especially when compared to some early producing and not long lasting crops. This is more of a practice run, and future seed procurement, instead of full run family food creation. I do not currently have the land for sustainable farming, but can practice and learn the skills needed, and the requirements. Heck, I am even trying rice this year. They say it must remain very moist. I have a dripping spot on my gutter that keeps on small are very moist. Give it a go, I suppose.

I just hope I can get you thinking about what you can do to prepare, and something that you can use now as well.