Discussion Board

Being from Alaska and recently from Northern Washington state, I have never tried it, but I was wondering, can you grow enough wheat in, say a quarter acre, to harvest enough for a year of home use? I live in eastern Montana now, I know they grow wheat here just not sure how much to plant to get enough to do the job for a year.

This question peaked my interest
here is an answer from wiki
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_poun ... e_of_wheat
How many pounds of flour can you get from an acre of wheat?

1300 pounds per acre.

The answer was in this answered question I found via Google.

How many square feet of a wheat farmers land does it take to produce enough flour to make a one pound loaf of bread?

Typical yields of wheat in the US are about 26 bushels per acre. There are about 50 pounds of wheat per bushel or 1300 pounds per acre. A pound of wheat yields about .85 pound of flour or 1105 per acre. It takes about .8 pounds of flour per pound of bread (the rest is water)giving about 1381 loaves per acre. There are 43560 square feet per acre, so it takes about 31 square feet per loaf of bread.

and where he got his answer from.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Food-Enginee ... search.htm

We grew wheat in our garden a few years ago. About 600 square feet. We seeded it in the fall and harvested in July. I have some pictures somewhere--it was beautiful from start to finish.

Here's the problem. How to thresh it?? We brought our shocks of wheat in and tried various things but it was a lot harder to thresh than I expected. It did make delicious pancakes, though! I'm sorry but I don't have any kind of measure of our harvest. (Some of it we never threshed and just put in the compost )

John Jeavons in "How to Grow More Vegetables" reports the highest rate they got in their program was 21 pounds per 100 square feet. (That's about 21 loaves of bread!) That is using intensive gardening methods, in California. He says the average commercial producer gets about 4 pounds per 100 square feet--that makes kittyadventures calculation above just about correct. So while I doubt if the typical gardener could do as well as Jeavons, you could certainly grow more than the commercial average, just my guess.

I would urge you to try growing some, if for no other reason than the fun of the growing experience. I wanted to find out if I could raise our wheat myself, and I decided that while it's very easy to grow, it's not for me unless there's some kind of threshing machine available in the community. Now I don't eat wheat any more, so it's moot. For me, survival food will be potatoes.

Thanks folks for your replies,,,
After I posted this my dear sweet husband said something along the lines of,
" Alright, Henny Penny, you grow the wheat, an you bake the bread, but I'm not going to help you thresh it"

Sooooooo, probably not wheat planting going on here.

But we did get the garden all ready for the spring planting and, thanks to my new diet we will be putting in much more this year and canning, freezing and drying again in the fall. I was to sick last year to even care, This year I am excited again. Yeah!

You'll enjoy the veggies. Us gardening folks do get dreaming about bigger and better dont' we. Good thing he spoke up so you didn't bite off more than you can chew.

Faith,
my husband is convinced that "biting off more than I can chew"
is my middle name.....
He didn't know me when I was a 130 pound mountain Mama, who could chop a cord of wood in a day, or pick up a five gallon bucket of water,,,in each hand,,,and just take off with it, or work in the woods or the garden from sunup till sundown, or hike a mile and a half up a mountain trail carrying or dragging a sled full of children or groceries or both.
( ah,,,,the good ol days how I miss them)
He met me after three years of living in,,,gasp,,,the city
But he is a patient man,,thank God,,and puts up with my wild indevers. so our garden is already 40 x 60 not counting the herb garden and all the flower beds,
at least this year there are no animals to tend to
This danged RA really slowed me down last year, But I've lost about 12 pounds now, 4 inches off my waist, 2 off my hips and thighs and I'm ready to get back in the game, which is good cause we need a new back porch!! LOL

LOL he sounds like an understanding man, or maybe he's just scared of you. Just teasin. It's a good feeling knowing you can survive on your own with little money and be strong enough to survive.

I grew up city and in summer would spend some time in the country to visit my Grandmother. I feel in love with the life style. I only got 2 years in the country before we moved back to the city. That was mainly due to the daily commute we had. It helps to be able to have our gardens etc. to not feel so city.

Faith,
He is truely one of the last of the good guys, and very understanding, and hee hee, just a little afraid of me, lol
I lived my whole childhood in rural areas all over the US then spent 20 years in the "bush" in Alaska and 10 years in the Mountains of Eastern Washington,
Living in Spokane was my first experience in a city, I couldn't stand the culture shock, nor having my 13 boy shot at, so back out to the mountains we went.
Now I live in the Badlands of eastern Montana, in a place where 'they' said I would never get a garden to grow, well two years ago I was selling excess produce at the farmers market so I guess I proved 'them' wrong.
I'm really looking forward to the garden this year!
Hope yours turns out awesome!

I admire anyone who can live in rural Alaska. I bet it's been kind of fun discovering how to grow gardens in such different parts of the country. I've only had to deal with the mid Atlanta.

Faith,
My Daddy was from deep south Mississippi, My Mother was from upstate Missourie (my Dad teasingly referred to her as that danged yankie gal)
They both grew up tending gardens and pass that and their Irish and Scottish love of the land on to us kids, I have always felt fulfilled by having a garden. The one I had in Alaska for many years was quite a challenge, but we did grow some wonderful veggies there, among other things
I didn't have a lot of luck with the garden on the mountain in Washington mostly cause it was nothing but rock, but we did grow some veggies on the dashboard of the bus we lived in.
I had a wonderful garden at our cabin in the Colville mountains, and had to fight tooth and nail to keep the deer and the bears out of it.
Our garden here is the product of 5 years of creating topsoil from barn and house and yard compost and bringing in topsoil and lawn clipping and bags and bags of leaves. We live in a place where the ground is 90% gumbo clay with a high alkili content, so having a garden at all has been an act of God!!!!!!
I have enjoyed all of my gardens and hope to continue well into my old age, Thanks to getting my life back from RA and Lupus I think I'll be able to.

Hrtz anyone who can grow anything in Montana is tops ... Really tops... I lived in Havre for about 6 months... the winter months and Great Falls for a year and a half.. I loved Montana it is really a special place not just for the sheer beauty of it but because the people really are amazing. IT is probably the best place I ever lived... and undeniably the most difficult to live in.

I miss the lilacs in the spring.. and the Friday night dances.... though this was 30 years ago I am sure they still have the Friday night dances. Everyone works so hard there that they play even harder on the weekends.

Oh, Faith! --good fun; good laugh!

You know what, I didn't realize how unfulfilled I had been until I was actually able to put out a full garden. Each January I'd get the same feeling like something was missing. I'd dream of the old days of sitting and dreaming about what all to plant.

Then March, I'd get a pit in my stomach and fond memories of getting the snap peas planted.

All summer I'd envy folks with gardens.

I got a little help by trying to stick in some herbs and tomatoes. But when after 20 years of wishing my Mom finally said, Faith what do you think about a putting in a garden. I perked up huh? I said Mom what about the lawn. This is miss my lawn is perfect. HA, she didn't care. She just couldn't do it. She put the money in and I put the muscle.

This is the third year, and we expanded. I'm in heaven trying to get the most I can from the land, and learning more than I ever knew also.

Oh Faith,

how our DNA doth speak to us!! It's in our nature!,,,to plant, to nuture, to harvest, to store by, to PROVIDE!! For ourselves, our family, our community..It's such a huge part of who we are, and yet we have crowded it out with business, and 'hobbies' and sports and tv and,,,,boredom.
go back and read what Letha posted from the Little House book,
The dad ask, What would you do with your spare time.
We have so much technology to 'save time' yet what do we do with our spare time,,,
and every spring and fall our instincts try to awaken us to the now, the necessary, the fullfilling acts of caring for ourselves,,and we ignore those instinces. Either because of a 'busy' life or our job or our family or, or, or,,,,,because CSI is on, lol
every single year that I lived in the city I would start getting really ansy around September and October.. I would get down right irritable! Finally one fall my oldest daughter put her finger on the problem.....
no wood to chop!!! no garden to harvest!!!! no reason to scrurry around and get things 'buttoned' down for the winter to come..I missed it!! I missed it so bad it was actually making me ill.
That was my last year in the city, in an apartment-that was supposed to be convienent for me cause I wouldn't have to work so hard. I needed that hard work,,,It was what reminded me that I had a pulse!!!!
Thank God for gardens!!!!! even if it in a pot on the window sill, or a postage stamp out of the beautiful lawn.
The satisfaction from that home grown carrot, or tomatoe or squash is priceless...even if it did cost you a backache and a sunburn...
I hope you enjoy your garden this year with lots to spare for sharing!!!