Gene Logsdon, one of my favorite gardening/farming authors, wrote a book in 1977 titled “Small-Scale Grain Growing.” In it, he talked about the common gardener competitions to have the best, biggest, earliest or most unusual produce in the neighborhood. Gene won the contest the year he told a neighbor about his pancake patch. As Gene pointed out, it’s not all that hard to grown your own pancakes – or bread, rolls and pasta, for that matter. Grains take up less space than you might think and are easier to grow than most vegetables.
Choosing Your Grains
As long as we’re talking about pancakes, let’s start with wheat, which is the grain most people associate with these delectable griddle breads. (Although you can make pancakes with almost any other grain and the non-grain buckwheat, which is in the same plant family as sorrel, knotweed and rhubarb.) Wheat is admittedly the easiest and most versatile grain to use in the kitchen, as long as you aren’t gluten sensitive. If you can grow wheat, you can also grow barley, rye and oats. If you can grow corn, grain sorghum and millet are no more difficult. Or you might want to branch into rice (no, you don’t need a rice paddy) or go much farther afield with the Ethiopian grain, teff. Not to mention quinoa or armaranth – also not grains. These are related to beets and members of the amaranthus family. The biggest problem with the unconventional grains and “grains” is getting the seeds off the plants and/or grinding them into flour. It’s often much easier to thresh wheat, barley and oats, especially if you choose hull-less varieties.
Growing A Pancake Patch
Many grains can be sown in either fall or spring. The exceptions are the warm-season plants like corn, sorghum and millet. I prefer fall-sown grain whenever possible, as it winters over and is usually out of the way before you need the space for things like beans, squash and tomatoes. These grains also tend to grow ahead of the weeds, so you have fewer weeds to pull. Fall-sown grain doesn’t mind being snowed on, either. In good, rich soil you can space the plants 4 inches apart. A 100-square foot plot (that’s only 10 feet by 10 feet) can produce 20-30 pounds of wheat, rice, barley or oats. Barley and rice will tend to produce on the low end of the scale. Other than weeding and watering, grains don’t need much care.
Harvesting Your Grain
Harvest fall-sown grain in early to mid-summer (unless you’re growing the warm-season crops like millet and sorghum). It will store best if you harvest when fully dry. The stems and leaves will be fully or almost fully golden and a kernel of grain will be too hard to bite through. Buckwheat only takes 12 weeks to mature and you can plant multiple crops, so calculate harvest according to planting dates. For corn, let it dry completely on the stalk – it’s usually ready to harvest in late September or early October. You can harvest your grain heads with a sharp knife or scissors, then pull up the stalks separately. Cut the ears off of corn; ditto with millet and sorghum seedheads. Buckwheat tends to ripen unevenly – best to harvest each group of seeds as they ripen by cutting the stalk.
Threshing Your Grain
Threshing is fairly laborious if you’re talking about multiple acres. For your pancake patch, you can dump the grain heads in an old pillowcase and whack with a stick. Or hold the stems inside a clean plastic garbage can and slam the heads against the walls. Or buy the small children in the family new tennis shoes. Have them dance on the grain sheaves (spread on a clean sheet in the driveway to provide a hard, level surface). Once it’s threshed, pour it from one container to another in front of a fan. The heavier grain falls into your bowl or bucket. You shell corn, either by hand or with a mechanical corn sheller. If you want to use the grain for soups or porridge, all you have to do is thresh the hulls and blow off the chaff. For breads, you’ll need to grind it, preferably just before you bake.
There you have it – from pancake patch to the breakfast table!
