Growing grains workshop for gardeners scheduled for Graham

A workshop on how to grow grains suitable for the rainy, cold weather of western Washington will be held next Tuesday, March 1, at 7 pm, at the Elk Plain Grange, Anuttama Budd has announced. The workshop is free and will feature grain grower and expert Rene Featherstone, who spoke on the subject last year with the Graham Self-Reliant Community.

The Elk Plain Grange is located on Mountain Hwy (SR7), just north of the Fred Meyer Shopping Center on 224th St.

Below is the announcement from Anuttama. In addition, her blog is afont of important information on gardening and self-reliance:

http://billyandanuttama.wordpress.com/

Coming Event: How to grow grains in your garden

anuttama | February 11, 2011 at 9:38 pm | Categories: Growing Food, Permaculture | URL: http://wp.me/pWoss-bo

When: March 1, 2011 7:00 pm

Where: The Elk Plain Grange, 21817 Mountain Highway East, Spanaway, WA

What: A presentation by Rene Featherstone about growing grains for the home gardener

Rene Featherstone of Lentz Spelt farm in Eastern Washington

Price: Free

This should be an interesting and informative presentation. Rene came last year and gave a presentation at the Graham Fire Station that was well attended and appreciated in spite of the fact that we only had a couple of days notice that he’d be coming. So this year we booked the Grange that has more seating and will hopefully accommodate everyone who comes.

Rene is originally from Germany where he learned about farming and has spent most of his life growing grains and writing about agriculture as an agricultural journalist. Lately Rene has been concentrating on bringing back ancient grains such as spelt, emmer, einkorn and camelina. He has studied and experienced the value of these ancient grains which are highly suited for growing in a home garden because they adapt readily to a variety of conditions such as low fertility and drought. While they may not product the yield/acre of modern grains, they have other advantages such as the ability to draw trace minerals from the ground and their resistance to disease. Rene has good insight about grains that are appropriate for home use and can give some information about how to prepare the grains for use in the kitchen.

Billy and I will be bringing a pedal operated thresher that we have recently purchased so that attendees can see what it looks like and how it works. We’ll also bring our hand operated grain mill. Hopefully this will inspire many gardeners to try growing grains. It only takes about 1/20th of an acre to grow enough grain to feed yourself for a year–even in a bad growing year.

If you are planning on attending, please e-mail or call (253) 875-1842. The event is free, but I am concerned about over attendance because the Grange seats 130.