The wheat's ready, what do I do?

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I am brand new here! Haven't even read the posts, yet, but can't wait! Thought I'd pose this question right away. The hard, red wheat we planted last fall is ready to harvest (by hand) and I am anxious to get it all the way into a loaf of bread. Planted with tractor, but no combines around here. Thought may-be we'd mow it a swath at a time and gather it, but does anyone have any helpful suggestions. Don't have a scythe, so for now even thought I'd go out with any hand tool that will cut and do a bunch at a time and lay in back of my pickup on a sheet! Then, any advice on the rest of the process. Some of it is pretty ripe I think so I have to be careful. Thanks stacks! Hope to get to reading tonight and learn alot from you all.

-- Wildflower (your_wildflower@hotmail.com), June 08, 2000

Answers

I do not know how to thresh wheat by hand. Walton Feed has some infomation and I think some pictures on how to do it by hand. hope it assists you.

-- lynne e (leaves8@hotmail.com), June 08, 2000.

Gene Logsdon's book "Small Scale Grain Raising" is a good reference on just what the title says. The bad thing is that it is out of print, but might be available at a public library or through interlibrary loan. Worth looking for.

-- Jim (jiminwis@yahoo.com), June 08, 2000.

Get ahold of Carla Emery's Encyclopedia of Country Living. Not only does it have the information you need, it also has a little bit of everything, and a lot on most subjects you'll need or are interested in. annette

-- annette (j_a_henry@yahoo.com), June 09, 2000.

OHmiGosh! I just had this same question a couple of weeks here on this board. There were some responses and they all refered to the book "The encyclopedia of country living by carla Emery. However, we found ourselves in the same exact predicament that you're in right now. We have a two acre field of part hard red wheat and soft wheat. No combines for us either. We had to finaly end up inventing some tools that worked prety good. We knocked out harvesting the field in 2 days. We tried cutting the wheat down at the bottom of the stocks, with sort of a re-done hedge trimmer. it laid the wheat down real nice, but then to thresh it we beat it in a big drum!! WAY to tedious for us and our 8 children. SO, we got a heavy 3 gal. plastic bucket sawed it in half length wise, nailed a piece of plywood that covered up about 4 fifths up the side of the bucket. Then we attached size 60 penny nails all along the top. Sort of like a big giant comb with a bucket attached to it. And then we combed the heads off of the top of the wheat stocks.

We also made a sort of wheat thresher, which surly beats "Beating" the wheat and getting sore arms. If you're interested in more detail I will be glad to talk to you e-mail me and I will give you my number to call. Our little contraptions have worked wonderfully for the size of wheat field that we've had.

There is one thing though, The hard red wheat has big old beards on the top of the wheat heads that made it MUCH more difficult to thresh. The soft wheat is alot easier to work with on the smaller scale that we've been working with. In fact my hubby is threshing as I type, we're right in the middle of our "Little Wheat Experiment" as we call it. We did all this just so we know we could, and to learn a few things. We've learned a few things I must say. Will we do it next year???...maybe :)

-- Michelle Williams (bigwillsmom@hotmail.com), June 09, 2000.


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