planting more ancient Cereals.

[tombear]

You'd be welcome! Herself has got some venison in the freezer and the lad still has to break in the replica dark ages style cauldron he got last year.

oh I forgot to mention there Whelsh Onions and spring onions growing out front in the herb garden and I'll be growing some heritage leeks out back, just got to prepare the beds. Weathers meant to be good for the next 5 days so everything should go in.

atb

Tom

 

[Robson Valley]

I suggest wine braised venison (15 mins prep, 3 hrs in the cauldron) with root vegetables added for the last hour. Some ground grains for a bit of thickening near the end.
If there's anything I've learned about cooking game such as venison and bison in particular over the past 15 years, it's that onions and pepper are essential.
By my calculation, that's at least 12 sides of 2-yr old bison, those animals are 1,600 - 2,000lb live weight.

 

[tombear]

Sounds good except the wine bit, for some reason no matter how little is used the taste of alchohol spoils food for me. Perversely I use vast amounts of vinegars in cooking and they bother me not.

Saying that we are about to start some practice brewing, now we have discovered there's such a thing as "Gallon brewing", and have all the bits needed. Previously all the books and sites were on about doing 20 pints at a time, Doing 8 at a go seams a lot more reasonable especially now we know the later Saxons did use hops so the stuff won't go off in about 4 days or whatever ale does. The great big sack of the correct sort of modern barley has say long enough now to sprout properly and we've bought some modern hops and Brewers yeast so we just need to pull our fingers out.

In the end we would like to use the bere barley, wild hops ( not sure if we could grow our own if we could get the seed, need to find someone who's done it, I'm a poor botanist so don't fancy foraging for it) and a captured yeast but best start off with the tried and true stuff first! Using wooden barrels and what not would be nice but looking at them they are prohibitively expensive. I may be able to score some gallon stoneware jars. I've let the lad raid my stash of unused for chemicals Peasons stone bottles, pint and quart sized and we have plenty to put the finished stuff in.

atb

Tom

 

[tombear]

Delayed by about 10 days due to me letting life get in the way then going sick we've finally prepped the rest of the plot for the seedlings and left over seeds to go in and will be doing so when it starts cooling down in the afternoon , need to cut some sticks for the nets.

The big patch of bere is doing well despite the shade of the house and various trees part of the day and we are keeping on top of the weeds. The spelt is doing remarkably well as is the wild and small/bristle/ black oats and the small patches of emmer and einkorn. Unfortunately the Hebridean Rye isn't germinating at all, it was probably at the end of its use by date when I got it ( we all assumed it would go in that spring so there's not a lot anyone could do ) but it was worth a try. Perhaps I'll try for another batch next year when we will be rotating the cereals to the top third of the plot.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Got back from a great day out at RAF Cosfords airshow yesterday and the torrential rain and winds here had knocked all the cereals flat. I'm loathe to bend them back in hand as in the last I've snapped stems.

20 hrs later some are starting to stand up again. There's no rain forecast until Friday now but it's going to be cloudy rather than sunny.

Beres supposed to be about 90 days from sprouting to harvesting which would take us to the very end of July/ start of August.

ATB

Tom

 

[Robson Valley]

There's another botanical concept to consider = tillering.
The notion is that if you cut off the first/initial seed head,
this triggers the plant to produces several flowering stems in response.

Primitive domestic livestock grazing would have fed them and done the pruning at the same time.

Honestly, I can't tell you any more about the process than this.

 

[tombear]

So far the vast majority of the bere barley has raised itself up again after the battering of the storms last month and nice big spikey seed heads have formed. By my dodgy maths 90 days from the first sightings of green shoots/ germination will be up the last day of July/ first days of August. As ever it all depends on the weather. At least I have a basically barn like top floor where I can hang stooks up to dry if needs be, which I did on a much smaller scale one year and the they turned out all right berry wise. As well as the seed I hope to dry and keep as many of the stems as possible to use for craft work.

The Ex St Fagan gleaned spelt and both lots of oats are doing well, better than I thought to be honest and much to my delight some of the Hebridean rye has sprouted! Only maybe a dozen plants from the 180 odd seeds but if they survive the seed will go in next year and multiply until I get a decent amount.

The tiny rows of Einkorn, emmer and spelt herself planted from seeds from the experimental archelogy places we visited/ was in touch with have all survived and with any luck will provide seed for next years crop when we will rotate the cereals to the top of the garden and turn the whole bottom third that's currently under cereals to the peas and beans. We under until used the middle section this year but intend to grow more root veg there next year, adding suitable fertilisers to break down over the winter and trying to preserve the leeks etc that need two years.


The fruit hedge has really come on, there's very few places were we would be able to fit in any plants grown from suckers etc . Also it's getting tall enough to provide a bit of a windbreak for the cereals.

ATB

Tom

 

[Toddy]

Sounds really good Tom and a lot of work !
I hope Summer's good and things ripen well.

On the suckers front in your fruit hedge …..would you like rooted blackcurrants and gooseberries ?

I have a parcel half packed to come down to you; I could lift these at the last moment and pack too ? There are four blackcurrants and a couple of (at present, I'd cut them down but the roots are soundly formed) standard gooseberries needing new homes.

M

 

[tombear]

Sounds really good Tom and a lot of work !
I hope Summer's good and things ripen well.

On the suckers front in your fruit hedge …..would you like rooted blackcurrants and gooseberries ?

I have a parcel half packed to come down to you; I could lift these at the last moment and pack too ? There are four blackcurrants and a couple of (at present, I'd cut them down but the roots are soundly formed) standard gooseberries needing new homes.

M

Hi Mary
we need to catch up on the weeding, been very wet so we've not been inclined to garden much and my best minion has been made head boy at school, for some reason they start this accedemic year so he's spending a lot of time after school hours still there plotting world domination. He's not home until after 7 today as prospective parents are coming for a open day. We are supposed to get decent weather for the rest of the week after rain this evening.

Yes please on the rooted fruit, the last stuff you sent took well. Thanks!

i'm not sure how good the bere stems will be for making stuff. About half that were knocked over in the storms righted themselveve by the simply expedient of growing with a near 90 degree bend in them!

Thats the Bere as of this morning. In theory with 4 weeks to go, maybe 3 if my maths is out.

Theres quite a lot this year. This is about a quarter of it, I couldn't step back far enough to get it all in one shot.

The beres all the tall stuff, next to it is the gleaned spelt and closest the wild oats which was planted a couple of weeks later. I may have got that the wrong way around.

I should have waited until the sun was over the big sycamore! The stuff growing far right is the black/bristle/small oats. And behind those on that row a few heads of Hebridean rye. If they fruit I should have enough to do full rows next year.

Yup need to weed, badly!

atb

tom

 

[tombear]

The seed heads are all forming nicely apart from on the patch of wild oats, nice bushy if low growth but nowt that looks like a head forming, I'll have to look it up and see what it cycle should be. I'm surprised how tall and well the spelt has done, it was much more resistant to the bad weather than the Bere, although as you can buy the stuff readily enough I don't think we will be planting any next year.

I've not grown food oats before and although I knew what to expect from books etc the amount of seeds you get and the way they are sort of spread out is a bit disappointing looking for the amount of plant, if you know what I mean.

Assuming that nowt disasterious happen in the next few weeks and we get viable seed for next year we will rotate the cereals to the top third of the growing patch ( where there's most sun anyway) and double the size of the Bere patch with whatever of the Hebridean rye there can be, a guesstimate from the number of seed heads and a average number of seeds will be between 1 and 2 hundred plants tops. I'll also make space for what ever emmer and einkorn make it. The bristle/black/small oats I'm tempted to grow as seedlings then plant in patches in the herb garden out front, possibly with the spelt etc, as they are quite ornamental and it will act as a sort of living seed bank for me in case. I'm surprised how well a barley seed the middle son planted after he found it sprouting in a seed and fat ball he made for the birds has done in the large flower pot he stuck it in did. I'd have thought the root space would have been inadequate but it's done really well. So I'm looking for a big pot with handles to plant half a dozen of each type in it so it can be hauled over to school if he does his show and tell on Saxon farming again. Ok terms nearly over but I'm sure with growing them indoors to start with we can bring them to the stage the distinctive seed heads have formed if not ripened a few weeks earlier.

Next year we intend to do only a few of the ancient strains of the veg we are growing just to get seed and turn most of the garden over to a proper kitchen garden to provide food rather than as a experiments. It's been fun and a great learning experience but the yields will be only a fraction of the modern varieties and it's just not the best use of the area we have. If I had any sense I'd stop faffing with the cereals as the whole lot, if they survive, will make a few dozen pounds of seeds at best when I can go to the feed store and buy a sack for under a tenner! But I do like the Bere and this year I should have enough to share a few ounces of seed for others who want to grow Viking barley. I should get in touch with those kind folk at Butser etc to see if they want any to plant in their own experimental gardens, mind I'm sure they could have got some from Orkney if they hadn't already.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

Just brought in the bere, the odd head is a touch green yet but we are going to make sheaves and hang them up to dry for a few weeks. First off we will devide them into the rejects the biggest/ healthiest looking to be kept for seed and the rest for using.

ive had a close look at the rest and have come to some conclusions

the spelt isn't spring spelt at all but the stuff that lives over winter, it's not got any heads on and is like a low dense mass of leaves.

The he wild oats are doing really well as are the few dozen rye that actually germinated.

Something has got to the small oats, I'll look up the symptoms but several had the seed heads go a silvery colour with dark spots at the base and when you opened up a seed it was like a dark powdery soil inside. We've pulled all the sick plants. There's no sign of it having spread to the wild oats. We have had a awful lot of rain do I don't know if that's played a part.

the bere is in the shed and there's as much as you can roll up compressed in two single bed duvet cover, less some weeds that got mixed in.

im going to have a drink now before getting back to it.

ATB

Tom

 

[Robson Valley]

The rain may have been important or it lay dormant in your garden.
Must be in my garden soil = I have never (10 yrs and quit trying) been able to grow onions.
Common name here is "black smut fungus."

 

[tombear]

Aye, smut it is. There are ways of treating it and I may not loose everything and I can use a fungicide or what they darkly called "a hot water treatment", on the seed before planting.

My plans to bind and hang up sheaves have come to nought as the heads of the bere are so advanced they are shedding berries at a alarming rate so we are stripping the heads off and I will spread them on the big false top on my workbench which is straight in front of the big loom windows. Rained like hell last night so I'm glad we got them in. I'm not sure what to do with all the straw, it's all crooked and not that long. Herself, who is the only one who could do owt with it construction wise is quite sneary about it and has her eye on all the tall straight oats, emmer, einkorn and proper spring spelt. Because of our plans for next year the what's turn out to be winter spelt will get dug in as green manure or whatever it's called, we need the space and it should go in in the autumn anyway. We live and learn.

Next year we plan on 2 x 2 yard patches of all the cereal types out back just to keep the seed going and some small patches out front in the herb garden incase they go bad and as they are quite ornamental I've found.

With the bere we are about a third of the way through it and so far there's been a buckets worth of seed quality heads and two of usable for food/beer quality although the awns take up a fair amount of space.

ATB

Tom

 

[tombear]

With much help from the family , especially the middle son, the bere is now drying in the sun. Excuse the quality if the shot but it's very bright at the mo.

The buckets full full of the seed stock for next year, need to find somewhere to dry it off after the arns are knocked off then it will go into a linen bag hung up on a beam out of the way.

We'll keep turning the stuff on the false top and when it's dried off, or whatever the correct term is, I'll then process it to use for cooking or ale making. We were looking at the proper tool for removing the arns in the tool museum at Waterperry 6 days ago, looks like a grid of blunt blades with a socket for a broom handle you'd chop downwards onto the threshing room floor with. I suppose I could make a potato masher sized one to do small amounts like this is I could find some metal strip to saw up.

The middle lad then used 2/3rds of the straw to tightly pack the heavy linen palliasse I made years ago. The rest has gone into the compost bins.

atb

tom

 

[Robson Valley]

While this could be a penetrating insight into the obvious, your #1 enemy from now on will be mice.
Hang your crops from the roof on wires. You can smell it = mice can smell it.