Growing Wheat in Our Garden

Small-scale wheat production can yield a delicious, bountiful harvest, and sprout a satisfaction from making your own homegrown bread.

By Maggie Bullington
Published on April 23, 2021
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by Maggie Bullington

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The sun beat down out of the bright-blue summer sky as I crouched by rustling wheat. While I harvested, the rhythmic clipping of my shears combined with the soft, almost musical swishing of wheat straw. The airy touch of the awns brushed against my face. Recalling this scene reminds me of the biblical story of Ruth gleaning the barley harvest in Israel so long ago.

I was in my family’s Alabama garden on that summer day, working in a plot of wheat that neatly took in a parcel of one of our large garden beds — a space about 100 feet long by 4 feet wide. That’s a 400-square-foot plot, or roughly a hundredth of an acre.

One-hundredth of an acre of wheat? At this point, you may be thinking this project is highly ineffective. Why not just go to a grocery store and buy some flour? Why grow such a small stand of wheat? This is what you might call small-scale wheat production, and it isn’t just a theoretical project for me. My family routinely grinds wheat berries and bakes with fresh whole wheat flour. Having my very own wheat in the garden where I can watch each stage of growth, and then harvest and process it with my own hands, makes the experience of eating bread even richer.

Producing bread from start to finish has appealed to me for a long time. Have you ever read the story of the Little Red Hen? She industriously sets out to grow wheat for her own bread. Along the way, she keeps appealing for helpers from around the farm as she works through each stage of the process. No one ever shows an interest in lending a hand … until the freshly baked loaf of bread emerges from the oven. Now, everyone wants a taste! But at this point, Little Red Hen decides that since she did all the work without help, she’ll eat her bread without help too. This children’s story clearly portrays the value of diligent work, and when I was young, I enjoyed reading the version we had. The colorful pictures followed the wheat as it started from seed; turned golden; and was harvested, milled, and then baked into the delicious-looking loaf. I could almost taste it myself! Now that I’m a young farmer doing projects of my own, having that little hen’s skill of producing wheat for our family with minimal equipment has become an appealing asset.

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