We have exciting news: our wheat has sprouted!! If you remember, a while ago I mentioned how we wanted to try to grow our own wheat. We had such a grand time growing, drying, and grinding our own corn that I wanted to try our own wheat as well.
The Wonder Sweetie had tilled up a patch of ground by the greenhouse where we plan to plant our corn next spring, so he put another plot right beside it for the wheat.
In our area we plant winter wheat. I cannot tell you what a blessing it is, my dear one, to drive through the area in winter, when the leaves are gone and the grass is brown, and come upon a field that is covered in a bright, spring-green haze! It is like a promise of summer in the middle of winter and lends such a beauty and brings lightness to the heart when the cold gets heavy.
We wanted to try to grow heritage strains of wheat, but since this is our first effort and we were not sure what we were doing, we decided to go with wheat that a local feed store offers. We are saving our little packets of heritage wheat for spring planting, God willing.
Last week TWS and I went out looking to see if our wheat had sprouted. We tried to compare the corn bed with the wheat bed, but both had some green grass and weeds sprouting and it was hard to see if the wheat had come up.
Yesterday, though, I wandered to the bed and it was very obvious that the wheat bed had sprouted!
Now we just hope and pray that the wheat has established enough roots for vernalization. The wheat sprouts, then requires cold to kill it back so that it will produce reliably when the weather warms. We are expecting 60 straight hours of below freezing starting tomorrow, and even when that breaks, I believe there is another cold snap on its heels, so hopefully it will be cold enough for vernalization but not kill the wheat completely.
TWS got a scythe for Christmas--can't wait for him to be able to use it!
We also scattered wheat in the hay field just to see what would happen.
I hope you have a lovely day :) Let's chat soon!
Love, Steph
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