first wheat

The great plant of western Canada is not the maple leaf even though it adorns the national flag. The great plant of western Canada is wheat. The golden sheaves swaying in the prairie wind conjures images of the open spaces and big skies of Saskatchewan and Alberta.

So this year my homage to the pioneers and settlers of the west was to grow some wheat in my garden. A friend got some wheat grain from his farming father in Saskatchewan because I found no where that just sold wheat grain to the general public. I turned the soil and then create a shallow drill into which I popped the grain. I the turned the soil over and that was that.

I was late in planting my grain (June 11th) so I knew I would be harvesting late. We have had a wet summer so although the wheat shot up it remained green for most of the summer. Occasionally I would take a kernel of wheat and check to see how it was drying up, other than that I did nothing. We have already had our first frost but wheat can survive that.

Last weekend I harvested the wheat, the next challenge will be to separate the wheat from the chaff.