Further adventures in Anglo Saxon (ish) gardening.....

[Goatboy]

Are you making small beer with it? Would be interesting to see how it turned out as it's a bit of a lost art with most home brewers going for high alcohol rocket fuel at home.

The bere plants are looking nice and healthy in that picture.

 

[tombear]

Oddly enough the wife has been umming and ahing about brewing small beer with it. She used to do home brew back when a student and the charity shops are always full of secondhand gear. The only problem is I've been tea total since the day of my finals when I pretty much put myself off alcohol. for life ( well 25 years and climbing ) and herself is a complete shandy pants. That wouldn't be a problem but if I remember rightly without hops it go's off in about two weeks. Even as weak as small beers supposed to be she'd never get through it.


Mind we still have to get a crop in! Even the trial pot full I started indoors and planted out when the roots filled the pot ( they can go down 70 cm if there's space to) is growing well, the bottom leaves are a bit yellow but the rests growing fine. They are about 2 weeks ahead of the rest and Unnetted to see if the birds will get to the seed heads when formed.

I've asked Rae up in Orkney for advice on harvesting them as quite frankly I've no idea. The sheds pretty much a barn stuck on top of the house so to dry the stalks we have plenty of space to hang them. Unless I I find out otherwise I'm tempted to wait for the first seeds to fall, cut them all off at the bases and hang them upside down with pillow cases tied on and let they dry out naturally and fall.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Since the sun was out we started on a new bed and a few other jobs in the AS garden. While there I noticed Ta the bere that had started off in a pot about 2 weeks before the main bed was sown outside had developed ears, green but full sized ears! The wild outs are a couple of inches high but I think the spelt is going to do nowt and we will reuse that plot. The test pot had nowt in it apart from what's probably a single stray weed seedling.

i almost forgot, since Rae hasn't replied yet can anyone advise on harvesting the bere barley. I want to maximise the amount of seed for planting next year.

Thanks!

atb

Tom