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Massachusetts Bakery Distributes Wheat Berries for Customers to Grow in Their Yards |
12 Comments |
| By Steve Balogh in Eating Local, Green Living, Organic | May 2, 2008 | ||
Probably the coolest story in the “local food” movement that I’ve heard yet. A bakery in Massachusetts has started to distribute wheat berries (seeds) to customers to plant 100 sq. ft. plots of wheat in their yards. They plan a hand-scythed harvest in the summer. I think that this is a great idea, and it will be interesting to see how productive the 10 x 10 plots of “front yard” wheat are.
There is an NPR podcast here. And this local news story from The Recorder gives more detail:
Jonathan Stevens and Cheryl Maffei of Hungry Ghost Bakery became interested in what some are calling their ‘little red hen’ idea of giving people wheat seeds to grow locally after a New Mexico baker at a conference eight or nine years ago introduced them to bread made from locally grown grain.
Instead of baking with organic flour grown in North Dakota that gets trucked to North Carolina for milling, Stevens said, it makes much more sense to look at growing wheat and other grains nearby and milling it locally — especially since Massachusetts is believed to have been the site of North America’s first oat harvest — on the Elizabeth Islands — in 1602.
[snip]
‘We pride ourselves on baking organic bread,’ said Neftali Duran of Ashfield, who owns Holyoke-based El Jardin, with a branch bakery in Deerfield. ‘Yet we buy flour from 1,500 miles away. It doesn’t make sense.’
Working with the Montague couple on their ‘wheat patch’ project, Duran said he hopes that the success with spelt — a grain that’s becoming more popular, especially among people with wheat allergies — will convince farmers that grain-growing is possible and worth the risk.
Stevens and Maffei, who have been trying to interest local farmers in looking again at growing wheat, are researching four or five heirloom varieties of the grain, which they plan to distribute to customers to try square-foot plots on their lawns as a test.
‘It’s a step-by-step, little thing,’ said Stevens, who’s faced a challenge not only in getting seeds — some because of import restrictions from Canada — but also in convincing agricultural officials that there’s any reason to grow wheat here. ‘We’re trying to get it moving. We have to be an agricultural state, because we eat. There’s a lot of fallow land, and economic rationalization be damned, we should use it. Let’s stop paving it over and grow some food!‘
Amen!
Eric Winders said,
Fantastic Idea! We landscape garden folks in upstate NY (not far from Holyoke) and there is a lot of space on private property..Something like this would be pretty impressive if incorporated in to the suburbs…wow, the suburbs become the bread baskets…
Alexandra Kube said,
Very nice!!! Kudos!
Kory said,
Another upstate NYer (syracuse) stands up and applauds. Every time I drive by the massive useless patches of neatly manicured lawns I cant help but think of how much could be grown. Finally, somebody “gets it.”
N.Duran said,
Hi everybody, it’s I am one of the baker-founders of this project and the back yard plots are only a part of a much larger project to grow wheat, spelt and rye in western mass currently a nearby farm has 5 acres of spelt that will be ready for harvesting this summer they also have planted 12 acres of spring wheat, there is another farm that has 5 acres of winter wheat, and we keep learning of people taking the initiative on their own to start test plots.
joaquin said,
What a great idea! Transforming back yards into growing fields.
Good PR for the bakery.! and for everyone.
zabe thornton said,
I found this site because i want to grow a little wheat patch this summer. Any suggestions about how to’s? Where to get the wheat to plant? How much to plant for 100 square feet, etc?
J. Stringer said,
I too found this site in my search for seed with which to grow spelt wheat. I live near Concord, N.H. and would like to start planting spelt. Will you please let me know how to get started? Thank you.
Will Rayment said,
A couple of years ago I wrote a couple of articles on how to grow your own wheat, harvest and mill it. Growing your own wheat is a bit labor intensive. However, it is a very satisfying occupation, especially for those interested in healthy food that you can grow and make for yourself. I have found wheat growing also to be a great project for school children.
Will
The Ethicurean: Chew the right thing. » Blog Archive » Well worth the wheat: Gene Logsdon’s “Small-Scale Grain Raising” said,
[...] creative-minded people have begun to consider growing their own wheat, corn, rye, and other grains. Groovy Green noted last year that one bakery — the Hungry Ghost Bread company in Northhampton, Massachusetts [...]
Chelsea Green » Blog Archive » Ethicurean Reviews Long Out-of-Print Small-Scale Grain Raising said,
[...] creative-minded people have begun to consider growing their own wheat, corn, rye, and other grains. Groovy Green noted last year that one bakery — the Hungry Ghost Bread company in Northhampton, Massachusetts [...]
ace lockandkey said,
What a great idea,I too found this article because i am planning on growing my own grain in these upcoming years,I am not one of those”the end is near” people,nor am I one of the eat healthy people either,I am however,a reasonable minded person who has seen what the economy is doing,and has a very bad forcast for the not so distant future!!!People need to come to the realization that this world cannot hold the strains the human race is putting on it,and with over 6 BILLION people and growing drastically,with the enviorment fighting back to try and survive,I have come to believe.and i do mean TRULY believe,that this world is coming to a very hard reality check,with grocery stores closing,not being able to sustain the high price of foods,people having to travel alot of miles just to stand in line to buy a little bit of meat,I know people laugh at me when I describe this to them,but all I know is they will not be laughing at me when I am the one growing and baking my own bread and feeding my family because I learned how to do it,I give kudos and a half for this bakery trying to get people involved in growing wheat,I just hope it catches on,as I truly do not wish to have to fend of my neighbors with a shotgun because I learned how to grow grain and properly use it to sustain my families life!!!
Well worth the wheat: Gene Logsdon’s ‘Small-Scale Grain Raising’ « UKIAH BLOG said,
[...] creative-minded people have begun to consider growing their own wheat, corn, rye, and other grains. Groovy Green noted last year that one bakery — the Hungry Ghost Bread company in Northhampton, Massachusetts [...]