Planting day March 20 2019

The snow has finally melted so it’s time to plant. This year I’m growing mostly Chevallier with one bed of Jet (Thanks John!). It was a super nice day and I managed to get it all done before lunch. Here’s the process in pictures:

First step: Remove the straw mulch which worked really well for suppressing the weeds. I put it on my other plot.

Step 2: Dig up the beets and carrots I had overwintering in the ground

Too many carrots.

Next job, spreading the compost piles and sifting out the woody material, rhizomes and weeds.

The rows worked well last year and makes it easier to weed. These rows were 8 inches apart with 5 rows per bed.

Here’s the Jet barley sent to me from my buddy John.

After I put the seed in I push my foot between the rows which pushes the soil into the rows.

Then I walk on top of it to make sure the seed has good contact with the soil.

Finally I cover all the beds with Remay for two weeks to protect the seed from the crows. After two weeks it should be up a few inches, I’ll take off the Remay and put up a scarecrow.

 

 

Some Garden Highlights

 

Garden Update May 20 2018

April 9

This creepy creation is a last-minute improvisation made with clothes from a giveaway bag that was in my trunk. The head was made from a pillow-case stuffed with remay. Looks kinda stupid but it worked. The crows left these little seedlings alone. This is two weeks after planting.

 

 

May 6

 

 

 

 

 

Actually had some frost damage in April, that’s why it looks a little sparse on the bottom right.

 

 

 

Weeding has been much easier this year thanks to the rows. I still planted by broadcasting the seeds but before I did this I made 5 furrows per bed, so when I broadcast the seeds they more or less fell into the furrows. I then dragged my hoe in between to bury them.

May 12

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s what it’s looking like today, the Chevalier (front three beds) is racing ahead of the Maris Otter. I’ve installed the anti-lodging chicken wire for these and left the Maris Otter since it’s easier to weed without the chicken wire in the way.

May 20

 

Garden Update Spring 2018

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything. I’ve been super busy with a new job but I still have plenty of malting projects on the go and many more ideas I want to try. I’m currently brewing an ale made from a malt that germinated for 14 days. I also made malt with an accelerated schedule that took only 5 days start to finish as well as brewing a small beer with 100% unmalted barley, but more on these later.

Firstly, I want to thank all the people that have purchased one of my books. I’m quite happy with how the Malting Log book turned out and I’ve been using it for the last few batches of malt that I’ve made. I have to say it’s pretty darn handy.

I did have some problems formatting the Malting At Home book as a reviewer on Amazon has pointed out (the rest of the review is very positive so thank-you Jeremiah!). For some reason, Amazon direct publishing does not, at this time, recognize Google documents. So I had to turn my google documents into  Word documents and when I did this the formatting gets really screwy. I’ve corrected the spacing issues as best as I can but it’s not perfect. I’m sure there are better ways to do this but if you’re planning on self-publishing I would highly recommend starting with Word right from the start. I also wanted more pictures but knowing I wouldn’t have the time available for at least four months I decided to get it out sooner than later. I am however very happy with all of the recipes I’ve managed to compile and I was pretty excited when I realized I could use Google translate to read some German and French texts that included some very useful information. I think having all these recipes in one book is handy because surprisingly most of the big expensive modern text books are kind of lacking in actual recipes or kilning schedules.

I managed to get to the garden yesterday to plant this years barley. I actually had more Chevalier seed than expected and managed to plant 3 beds with Chevalier. I planted another 3 beds with Maris Otter and there’s a narrow bed that I had planted with the small amount of Bere seed I had.

From the other side looking north.

 

As you can see I’m not taking any chances here and covered everything to prevent the birds and squirrels from digging out the seeds. I’ll remove the covers in about two weeks.

 

 

 

As I was prepping the soil and removing some weeds I pulled out some beets that were perfectly preserved from last year. They had been covered up with a pile of weeds and straw. We ate them that night and they were like new. We also had some kale shoots which are very mild and not bitter at all. Here’s a shot of the kale “tree” I left in the garden over winter. I also planted a Fuji apple tree on the north side of the garden.

More kale!

Kale shoots

Fuji apple tree

Beets

In total I have about 530 square feet of barley planted this year and I’m hoping to get about 40 lbs. of barley from this.

 

Chevallier vs. Maris Otter

So far given the limited data I’ve gathered from my small plot of Maris Otter and my really small test plot of Chevallier, the Chevallier is seriously outperforming the Maris Otter. Visually there is a huge difference, the Chevallier looks stunning, the heads are huge, bigger than other two row varieties I’ve grown like Conlon and Harrington. As far as weight goes I counted out a random sample of 100 corns of each and the Chevallier weighed 6.2 grams, the Maris Otter weighed 5.3 grams. However, I have not measured the moisture contents yet so these numbers may be a little off but they have been drying indoors for the past 10 days so they’re probably close. I haven’t harvested all the grain yet, I should be able to tomorrow. Unfortunately this year I’ve been hit with racoons, rats and squirrels. I figured they’ve taken about 30-40% of my Maris Otter crop, it’s hard to say. The cayenne pepper seemed to work for the racoons and maybe even the rats but made no difference to the squirrel who seems to like it spicy. I caught him a few times sitting on the chicken wire right out in the open munching away. The good news is I should have enough Chevallier seed to plant a big plot of it next year, I can’t wait to brew with it.

Two of the larger sized heads. Chevallier on the left Maris Otter on the right.

Three large sized heads and three average sized of each. Chevallier on the left , Maris Otter on the right.

You can see the big blank spot in the front as well as the upper left corner.

Chevallier. The plants are tall and the heads are heavy, it probably would have lodged on a larger plot.

Maris Otter drying in the kitchen. I’m so grateful that my wife “appreciates” (puts up with) my hobbies.

 

Garden Update July 1 2017

Moonlight,

June night,

Just-right-for-racoon night.

Not too dark,

Not too bright,

As we look for treats.

Out we creep

While people sleep.

Soon we hope to find a heap

Of cheese and bread crumbs,

Piled deep

On codfish bones and beets.

-Nancy Shaw

Bere barley last week

This is from one of my kid’s favorite books when they were little it’s called Racoon Tune. I must have read this to them a thousand times back when I thought raccoons were cute. I’ve since changed my mind. The barley was looking fantastic last week and I thought I may even be harvesting the Bere barley this week but they beat me to it, the masked bastards. Look at the Bere now.

Bere barley this week.

They also destroyed about three beds of the Maris Otter. I’m thinking it’s raccoons and not rats because the stems have just been knocked over whereas rats tend to chew the stalk at the base and then take the seed head. Some of the seed heads have just been chewed off and the only other animal that could do that would be a skunk but they’re quite a bit smaller than the raccoons around here. I also found some of their crap which was rather neatly deposited into one corner of the garden, at least they have manners.

 

Looks like raccoon crap.

Fortunately, there is quite a bit of barley left in the garden, the Chevallier looks good so I’m not giving up.

Chevallier

The Maris Otter

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I couldn’t leave the garden today without doing something to deter these little buggers. Fencing is out of the question, they would just climb over it. So I figured I’d try to make it a little unappetizing for them. I bought three packs of cayenne pepper and sprinkled it all over the barley and I tried to get some on the ground as well so they’d get it on their paws. I know, it sounds kinda cruel, but I’m hoping they’ll just smell it and move on. Fingers crossed.

 

Garden Update 2017

I’ve got a new plot! (again). Last year’s new plot turned out to be a bit of a disaster. It was big and had been neglected so it was full of weeds and rhizomes. I had a heck of a time trying to pull out the grass that kept coming up. It was also in a poorly drained part of the field so it wasn’t a good choice for spring planting. The new plot although smaller 20×30 ‘ is close to my old plot, which I’ve kept, so I’ll be alternating the barley between the plots each year. I planted on March 11 before we went away for a spring break vacation and when we came back everything had come up beautifully, especially the barley under the remay. You can see the difference in this picture, the beds in the front had the remay. The other beds will catch up after a few weeks.

Two weeks after planting. Temperatures ranged from 3 to 10 C

AS soon as I removed the remay, these jerks showed up and started snacking on the seeds

I had to do something, so I took the shirt I was wearing (I had two) and stuffed it with the remay to make this creepy scarecrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Bere is coming up well but the Chevalier seems a little sparse.

Chevalier

Bere

 

John’s mower

 

Check out John’s mower in action! pretty cool. The crop looks great. You can read more about his operation in the Home Growers and Maltsters section. Meanwhile up here in Canada mine is nowhere near harvesting but take a look at the Einkorn. It’s way taller than I though it would be. Sorry about the big ugly mug in the shot but it gives you an idea of the height of it.

Einkorn

 

Garden Update

 

Black Einkorn Wheat

Looks a little sparse but at least it’s growing. This picture and the one of the barley was taken on April 10 so it’s a little bigger now. I’ve got one 4 ft. by 10 ft. bed of Einkorn wheat and about 500 sq. ft. of Maris Otter this year so double the square footage from last year.  Einkorn wheat is one of the oldest domesticated grain varieties dating back 10,000 years. It also keeps it’s hull like barley, so even though it must be a pain to process for food it should be great to brew with. Theoretically that is, I haven’t tried it yet. One potential problem is the amount of protein in this grain, a whopping 18% which is twice that of a good malting barley. That’s more protein than some ground beef! So I’m expecting something pretty hazy. According to this study it’s also high in beta carotene and Vitamin A, that’s kind of a bonus. Here’s a good description of Einkorn that also includes some recipes and here’s a description of some other ancient grains worth experimenting with if you can find them. Also check out this fantastic article all about hulled wheat 

This picture of the barley was taken on the same day

Maris Otter

 

One beer per square foot!

This year I’ve had a stellar crop of barley, nearly 40 lbs! I can’t tell you the exact final tally because there is still some barley ripening in the garden but I do have over 38 lbs. here at home. A big part of this success I can attribute to the lack of mice, rats and birds. I can only guess as to why they left everything alone this year. I think the main reason is timing, not that I planned this, but we’ve had a very hot dry summer and everything is ripening early around here, even the blackberries are already ripe. So this means there’s a lot of food for the critters and I guess barley is not on the menu. The chicken wire also worked well again keeping the barley upright. Most of it would have lodged without it. So what about the quality? Usually when growing barley for malting you want low protein levels so the nitrogen levels in the soil are carefully controlled. I recently found a place in my area that will test my barely for protein content.

The claim I’ve made – ” a beer per square foot” is based on 4 19L batches of brew using 8 lbs of grain and an 80% efficiency. This would give you an S,G. of  about 1.046. (a little low I know)  Bottle size would be the small European size at 330ml. 228 bottles from 226 square feet of barley, not bad at all!  This would make approximately 214 standard 355 mL bottles and 222  341 mL bottles.