# Growing your own wheat?



## MN Mom

Hi there. We live in town, but have a decent size area to have a garden. Is it possible to grow your own wheat in your home garden without having acreage? I don't have any idea how much land you need for wheat or how much wheat you'd need to use for flour, etc. Thank you!!


----------



## Lisa A

I'm going to try grains for the first time this year - per Jeavons, you can get 
as much as 25# of wheat from a 100 square foot bed... (if you're good) a loaf 
takes about 1-2#, I think. I'm just going to grow 12 sq.ft. this year to see 
how it works, so maybe one loaf of bread 

I found seeds for wheat and other grains at bountiful garden seeds.


----------



## MN Mom

Hi, who/what is Jeavons? Thanks, Sara



Lisa A said:


> I'm going to try grains for the first time this year - per Jeavons, you can get
> as much as 25# of wheat from a 100 square foot bed...


----------



## jdskidder

Lisa, does Bountiful garden seeds have a web site?

Dorian


----------



## Windy in Kansas

Wheat is quite easy to grow. As most will attest, the challenge comes in threshing the crop once you have grown it.

The old "Countryside Magazine" forum archives should still have an article on growing wheat on small plots. The article was by "greenbeanman" which I used to post as over on that board.

A few thoughts---a benchmark for a bushel of wheat is 60 pounds. It takes a little over 1 pound of wheat to produce 1 pound of flour. Work backward from knowing how much flour you want to space requirements.

Common dryland wheat yields in Kansas are easily in the 40 bushel per acre range. 

An acre is 43,560 square feet. Hence 40 bushels X by 60 pounds = 2,400 pounds per acre. 

I've only heard of one or two reports of wheat yields of 100 bushels per acre even with irrigation, but for the sake of discussion I will use the 100 bushel yield figure.

100 bushels X 60 pounds = 6,000 pounds for one acre. Divide the 6,000 by the square footage of one acre, i.e. 43,560 and you get .1377 pound production per square foot. 

To figure the production on 100 square feet you would simply multiply the .1377 by 100 = 13.77 pounds for the 10' X 10' plot. Remember this figure was for ideal production, I would expect that your actual yield would be well less than half that, i.e. 7 pounds or so. 

For flour make sure you choose a variety that has good milling and baking qualities as not all wheat is created equal. Most commercial mills blend different varieties of wheat to get the proper glutten/protien/milling/baking properties.
From what others have written to these forums I think Prariie Gold would be a good one without blending.

Whether you grow to maturity, wheat does make a good green manure/cover crop. Livestock can be pastured on it without a great yield loss if removed from the pasture in early spring. Under certain circumstances cattle can also die from eating wheat with frost on it. Not usually, but on rare occassions.


----------



## lj_sunshine

<snip>


> Whether you grow to maturity, wheat does make a good green manure/cover crop. Livestock can be pastured on it without a great yield loss if removed from the pasture in early spring. Under certain circumstances cattle can also die from eating wheat with frost on it. Not usually, but on rare occassions


OK call me ignorant but when do you plant wheat? Spring, Fall ?

Loris


----------



## Windy in Kansas

When do you plant wheat? 

There are both spring varieties and winter varieties. The winter variety is used extensively in Kansas and is planted mostly during September and October. 

The spring variety would be planted around here as soon as the soil conditions allow, i.e. dries enough to get the soil worked. Same for spring barley. 

Winter wheat, planted in the fall, is harvested for grain in June and July in Kansas. Usually since the introduction of shorter maturing varieties in just June. Wheat harvest starts in Texas in May and works northward as the crop matures in fall near Canada---at least that is what the custom combining crews that lived in my home area used to do.


----------



## shorty'smom

You will probably end up planting Spring wheat in MN. I know that in SD they raise Spring wheat because of the harsh winters. Winter wheat is subject to winter kill if it is too cold for too long, especially if there is no snow cover on it to help insulate it. You'll probably have better luck with Spring wheat, which I know nothing about. 

A Hard Red Winter Wheat farmer.


----------

