when it takes longer than it should, and I am an expert at doing things the wrong way! That first spring after planting the pink muhly grass, I watched in dismay as each plant went dormant and never returned to life. Upon closer inspection, the roots had simply rotted and my dream of a showy fall border faded away. But I still had my specimen trees in my otherwise empty bed. It needed something beautiful to complete the design, something that would survive the realities of my soil. What to do next?
ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN B: That may have been the first time in my gardening life that I felt like I had a black thumb. Now, I hate that term and I try to never use it, but the truth is, when you spend your hard-earned money on plants that die, you feel like a failure. I struggled to come up with a plan B, until a chance meeting with Ros Creasy, my longtime role model and edible gardening guru. She was the first person to ever mention the idea of seasonal grains – and what a brilliant idea it was, although I didn’t know it at the time. That came later, when my friend Chip Hope, a senior lecturer at Appalachian State University and Director of the ASU Sustainable Development Farm, handed me a bag of wheat seed and challenged me to grow it.
I have never looked back.
Chip Hope introduced me to grains by sharing a bag of wheat seed.
I discover wheat
As a child growing up in the Midwest, I recall the faint shade of green in fields as the snow would melt, revealing the winter wheat that farmers had sown the prior autumn. It was a sign that spring would arrive – sometimes sooner than later. But beyond that insignificant observation, I never had to think about what came next.
Cheerios, Rice Krispies and oatmeal were staples for breakfast, and while I was amused by the cartoon mascots, I never once considered what I was eating or where it was grown. Like most people, I took for granted that grains were a part of my daily diet, filling me up and providing me with energy. I would devour macaroni and cheese, yet I was totally ignorant of an understanding of what pasta was. As far as I was concerned, it came from a box that was purchased at the grocery store. The end.
A DIGRESSION: Later in life, when I discovered the undeniably delicious flavor of beer, I was once again faced with the reality of ignorance. I hadn’t considered what malted barley actually was; it was just decoration for the bottle’s label.
As the “local” micro brewery scene expands across North America, does anyone ask, “Where was that barley grown?” or “How local is local?” Would beer drinkers even recognize a barley plant if they saw one?
But back to the wheat: I have a tendency to go overboard in the garden. What started off as a novel fascination quickly blossomed into a full-blown obsession. First of all, I had no idea wheat would be so pretty! Additionally, it was inexpensive and easy to grow. I quickly learned that wheat has a lot more to offer than just seasonal beauty.
MY FIRST GRAIN BED: As I was sowing that first crop of wheat seed, I didn’t know what to expect. It was the middle of December and the Carolina temperatures were dropping quickly. I don’t own a tractor, and as I prepared the space for that original suburban grain experiment I wondered if growing my own wheat was an effort in futility. What would I actually get out of it? Would my neighbors be offended? No one else was growing it, so there must be some reason why it has never been part of a landscape, at least in my lifetime.
The bed or “wave” as we call it, is situated in full sun and bisects the front yard. It runs about 100 feet long by 8 feet wide and still includes the choice trees, which create the taller screening from the road. Inspired by the Serpentine planting at Chanticleer Garden, this bed creates two distinct areas: a street-facing lawn and shrub border and our private garden space closer to the house. This arrangement allows me to experiment in a way that is a perfect crossover from traditional landscape to agricultural cultivation. I am keen to keep the space tidy and be a good neighbor while providing a more conventional welcome for visitors.
Did you knew… wheat can improve your soil? The strong roots will break through compacted soil and act as a natural tiller! And what about using the hay as compost to improve your topsoil? Just mow the stalks in place and they will add essential organic matter that will feed your next crop. How about growing your own organic birdseed? Yep, grains do that too!
Much to my surprise, the seed germinated quickly, popping through the bare earth as bright green sprouts, an amazing contrast to the tan of the dormant centipede turf surrounding the bed. Every day, I would stand in amazement as the seedlings grew stronger, unaffected by the nightly frosts. Within two weeks, the green was so dominate it looked like spring at Christmas.
The winter months passed and the wheat continued to thrive. With longer days and spring rains, it stretched toward the sky. One day, flower stalks appeared and gently waved in the wind as their pollen floated about, ensuring an abundant harvest was on the horizon.
SO MUCH BEAUTY: It wasn’t until the wheat dried, which happened almost overnight, that I felt the strongest connection to God and country. Here in my suburban front yard, I had literal amber waves of grain, and I would bow down, camera in hand, totally fascinated by each seed that had developed. “America the Beautiful” would fill my head on repeat – and then I would stand at attention wondering, “What on earth do I do now?”
What I did was wake up very early in the morning, before the late spring temperatures rose into the 90s, and begin hand harvesting with my trusty Okatsune pruners. This was the most beautiful thing I had ever grown, so I carefully gathered each handful, wrapping a rubber band at the base, thinking of how I would make beautiful table arrangements with my newfound best friends. I had no intention of eating such a lovely plant! Five wheelbarrow loads and about a thousand Instagram posts later, I called my dear friend Erin Weston and declared I had her next product to offer at Weston Farms. Wheat would be the perfect complement to her gorgeous line of cut magnolia wreaths, garlands and bouquets. We both squealed with delight, as if we were the first people to ever discover the ornamental quality of a plant that has evolved for more than 10,000 years.
TOO BEAUTIFUL TO EAT? Of course, my logical, engineering-savvy husband decided we had to eat at least some of the harvest. New questions started to emerge: “How do we get the seed out? How do you refine it into flour?” Thus began the research on threshing, winnowing and grinding and how to do it with a modern sensibility in the suburbs, sans a combine. The more we learned, the more my obsession began to take over my being. All of my social media posts now included the hashtag #CrazyGrainLady. I needed to store each and every photo to reference back at a future date.
My dear friend Erin Weston of Weston Farms was delighted with the wheat harvest!
As promised, David rose to the challenge and created a homemade thresher consisting of a paint bucket with a lid, a drill and a long rod with chain link attached to the end (photo on page 153). We used box fans to blow the chaff away and invested in a hand crank grinder to achieve the ultimate goal of flour – all for a few zero-food-mile tortillas. Now this was eating local!
