If you’re lucky enough to have a garden, you know how rewarding it is to have fresh grown food on the table. As a kid, I spent the summer on my grandparent’s farm and huge gardens were the norm.
Today, even a small garden can reap a lot of fresh produce.
But here’s an idea – why not grow some grain while you’re at it. No need for a big acreage either.
I came across this great article by Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds in Small Farm Canada with some fabulous tips for the urban gardener…
Grains are fabulous garden crops. If you’re seriously thinking about growing more of your own food, nothing can be easier or more rewarding than grains. They grow like the grass of your lawn—only you allow them to mature instead of mowing them down.
Most people in Canada have forgotten or have never known that grains can be cooked as the whole foods they are. If you don’t mill them or pearl them or roll them, but just cook them, you get all of their goodness. We’re somewhat used to doing this with the rice that we import but not with our own grains. Wheat, barley, oats and spelt are good sources of fibre, niacin, thiamine, iron, phosphorous and calcium.
Dan has some tips on varieties you can plant and even a recipe. Read the full article here.
What I love about this article is it reminds me of when I was a kid, spending summers on my grandparents’ farm. Almost everything we ate was grown right there, and going out into the garden to pick peas, beans, corn and tomatoes for the supper table was the norm.
The garden was just an extension of the farm – one part of the food circle – and grinding up some grain for flour meant a short trip to the little shed next to the barn.