Wheat Harvest

June is wheat month. I plant our wheat in the fall (winter wheat) and it’s ready to harvest in June. Cutting and gathering takes the good part of a day, and once harvested, processing takes up the rest of the month.

Wheat is ready to harvest when most of the plant has turned golden brown and the grains in the seed heads are hard. If they can be squished between one’s teeth, they aren’t ready yet. From  experience, we’ve learned that harvesting too early makes it difficult to thresh. Wait too long and the heads shatter, i.e. the seeds fall to the ground on their own. The trick is getting a patch of nice weather at the right time to do the job. Because we only get to do this once a year, we’re still learning.

The stand was patchy but the seed heads were the largest and fullest we’ve ever grown. Not all of them, but most of them.

Processing is easiest if the grain heads are lined up, but scything leaves cutting helter-skelter. To cut grain for threshing, a grain cradle is traditionally used.

Trouble is, no one makes these any more, so it has to be a DIY project. There are lots of ideas out there, and Dan has experimented with some of them, but none with satisfactory results. Scything with a cradle takes a slightly different technique, and since we only get to try a new idea once a year, it’s a slow road to figuring it out.

One problem we had this year was that the ground was still very soft from recent rains. Many of the wheat plants were pulled out by the roots. Another problem is that not all of our plants were the same height, so getting the heads lined up in neat bundles was near impossible. We end up removing most of the heads by hand. You may think that’s an awful lot of extra work, but it’s actually a matter of where we put the work; either in separating the heads or in extra winnowing because there is more chaff in the grain from the stalks.

We’ve tried a number of methods for threshing, but so far have had the best success with our thresher converted from a small yard mulcher. You can see that in this post. The only drawback is that it tends to break some of the grains. This year Dan tried something different.

It’s two short lengths of chain on a paint stirrer. The seed heads are put into a 55-gallon food grade barrel, and the chains beat the seeds out of the heads.

Winnowing is next. That’s the process of blowing away the chaff to get the wheat berries. I do this with a box fan, as you can see by scrolling down toward the bottom of the threshing post. Winnowing is quickest with the least amount of chaff. By only threshing the seed heads, we have less chaff to winnow.

So, we’re still threshing at the moment. I’m anxious to get on with the rest, so we can make some flour and taste our new wheat!

Next time, I’ll show you what we’re doing with the wheat patch, now that the wheat has been harvested.