Wheat Seeds (Triticum spp.)
Grains are a surprisingly easy and very rewarding crop for home gardeners. They can be planted as early as the ground can be worked in spring. Here in coastal British Columbia (zones 7-9), October or November sowings also produce excellent results. Late fall or early spring plantings are harvested before August, opening possibilities for mid-summer sowings of other crops.
Grains tend to "lodge" or fall over in very fertile earth, so you can plant them in your less enriched areas. To first-time growers I recommend sowing grains an inch or so apart in rows. After a season of multiplying them, planting in blocks works well. Lightly cover the seed with soil and put out a scarecrow if birds are raiding.
Harvest ripe seed when the plants have dried down completely. Pick or cut individual heads and thresh by hand or foot rubbing. I use a simple wooden threshing box that is 3 feet by 4 feet by 1 foot high with some thin slats screwed onto the inside bottom for extra abrasion. A foot shuffle over the hard grains removes the chaff from the kernels. I then use a nozzle attachment on my air compressor to quickly clean the seed. Fanning, screening and winnowing work too.
Few people realize that wheat can be sprouted or cooked as the whole wheat "berries" they are. In fact, these delicious ways of eating wheat provide much more nutritional benefit than consuming it as bread or pasta.
Your homegrown wheat will cook up in about an hour at a low simmer.
Try soaking kamut (or other wheat) kernels overnight, draining and then rinsing them twice daily for two or three days. At this stage of early sprouting, they seem to be just bursting with goodness and are wonderful with salads or soups.
Saving your own seed: Grain cultivars don't cross, so saving seed for planting is simply a matter of not eating all the harvest.
Packets of all the grains listed below are 1 oz./28 gm.
We are currently offering 15 varieties of Wheat Seeds (Triticum spp.).
Black Einkorn ($3.50)
!0,000 year wheat still grown in northern Spain and southern France. Heads turn from green to brown to black. Beautiful in flower arrangements
Blue Tinge Ethiopian Wheat ($3.50)
About 4 feet high, with an unusual blue cast to both seedheads and seeds. Easy to thresh and delicious cooked as a whole grain. Matured in 90 days in 2007, weeks ahead of other wheats. Good harvest in 2008.
Emmer Wheat ($3.50)
Also known as Farro. One of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. Gives good yields in poor soils has good resistance to fungal diseases in wet soil.
Golden Hard White Wheat ($3.50)
About 4 feet high. Easy to thresh and delicious cooked as a whole grain. Gifted by Nina Raginsky.
Kamut (also called Polish Wheat) ($3.50)
Has a very beautiful, silvery blue seedhead as well as a characteristic gooseneck wave in its stalk. The kernels are twice the size of regular wheat. Kamut contains 29% more protein and 27% more lipids than common wheat. It measures much higher in vitamins and minerals. As a cooked whole grain, it has a rich corn-like flavour.
Khapli Spelt ($3.50)
Fan-shaped head with light golden seed. Needs to be machine-threshed.
Lavras ($3.50)
Amber wheat from Brazil. Top wheat in our trials for productivity in 07 and 08.
Marquis ($3.50)
Century-old Canadian wheat. The #1 Prairie wheat for many decades. Great production, disease resistance and reliability.
Red Fife ($3.50)
This early hard red spring wheat is a very famous Canadian heirloom that is once again becoming popular.
Spelta Wheat (Triticum spelta) ($3.50)
Light golden seed in a trident-shaped head. Was an important staple in parts of Europe from the Bronze Age to medieval times. Needs to be machine threshed.
Timopheevi (Triticum timopheevi) ($3.50)
Long season spelt-like wheat from Russia, which is especially resistant to disease. Also known as Sanduri Wheat.
Triticum monococcum ($3.50)
Also known as Einkorn wheat and small spelt, but not to be confused with common spelt which is not the same thing. This is the oldest and most primitive cultivated wheat. Golden-brown grains. Late to mature.
Utrecht Blue Wheat ($3.50)
A very striking and ornamental wheat that usually grows to about 5 feet. Difficult to thresh.
Vavilov ($3.50)
Named after the famous Russian plant scientist and explorer. Heads have a fat flame-like shape. Hard to thresh.
White Sonora Wheat ($3.50)
Grown in northwest Mexico since around 1770. Soft white wheat with mostly awnless, compact, medium-long heads. This Land Race wheat has done very well for us for 10 years now.