A granery, Armstrong

Well, thanks to bcboy, did I ever learn something cool this morning. That there is a granery in Armstrong, which is less than half an hour from my home. I looked up the granery on the internet and their website came up, Fieldstone Granery. I am so impressed and so stoked. Now probably a mountain of questions shall arise for all those that raise grains and have opinions about things. Learned some cool stuff about what they term "ancient grains" and why many people have allergy to some wheats, just too cool for school .

First one I think is to you, Bowker Acres. Now if I am mistaken, please correct me. Are you the individual that has pea fields? Seems to me it was you, or maybe it was someone else's farm. if it is you, tell me about what you do with the peas? I would love to know, cause I would like to plant a pea garden, but I need to find out what is done with mass produced peas. Are they human eating type, or are they animal feed.

I also learned about spelt this morning. Never heard of it before, but did a little studying.

Also learned a whole bunch more stuff, about ancient wheats, stuff like that.

Also learned that I can get hulls, like spelt hulls. I use rice hulls for one of the components for the bedding for my chicken homes. But it is very, very expensive (anyone remember my rice hull posts?). I see that for a 20 kg bag of spelt hulls, it is only $7, almost 1/3 the cost of a bag of rice hulls. Oops, I need to go and look at the picture to see how much was in the rice hull bag before I go further, it could be bigger, gonna go look.....

Oops, I see the bag of rice hulls is 50 pounds, so I think that 20 kg bag of spelt hulls is 44 pounds, probably a similar size bag as to the rice hulls. The rice hulls come from California, but Daughter got 15 bags as a fund raiser, so I don't mind paying the high cost of the rice hulls, but we are down to the last bag, smiling. The bag of 50 pounds of rice hulls was $20, fifty pounds of spelt hulls is $7. Quite a difference. I am going to get some maybe today and see if the chickens like the spelt hulls, or even if I do. Time will tell that tale. This is what the rice hull packaging looks like:

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So, here are things that are mind probing. Would red wheat or white wheat make better sprouting wheat? For wheat grass? I tried to sprout wheat (no clue what kind it was) that I had purchased from Surecrop. It did not sprout, sigh. The scared me. I have a Huron slow juicer, pulp comes out one faucet, juice comes out the other faucet (spigot? what is that called anyways), and it will separate the wheat's grass to make the juice, yummmeeee.

Do peas, like in the peas that a mill would have sprout?

I am sure there are lots of people that grow wheats, peas, spelt, stuff like this. Anyone wanna make some comments for me. I am such a learning mode all the time and love to listen. Bring it!! Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.

What about the link to the web site?
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How about some youtube videos about sprouting?
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What do you do with you sprouts or greens?
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What kind of juicer should I get?
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What kind of juicer do I own? Masticating Slow Juicer with single auger.
I got mine at London Drugs. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

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That should keep you busy for awhile.

Interesting about the granary CynthiaM. Will have to have a look at the website it founds very interesting.

We grow peas here to go in the silage. They are a livestock pea, I am not sure of the variety, but I can sure find out for you. I go out into the silage fields and pick stuff for the chooks all through the year. They love the variety of greens. Hubby frowns at me when he catches me and says it is for the cattle. I tell him to remember that this time of year when he has poached eggs for breakfast every morning at calving time!!!

I hadn't thought of silage, but I may have to go and raid some of the bales as they feed them. Hmmm, wonder if the chooks would like it, I know it sure smells good.......

Cynthia, usually the field-grown peas are for livestock. On most farms in my area, they are dessicated (sprayed with chemical) to dry the pods and make them easier to harvest. I could be wrong - we don't grow peas on our farm - but I believe most farmers use a straight-cut header and combine them directly off the plant (do not swath first) when they are dessicated.

They can also be cut with a swather and left to dry naturally in the swath, but that takes longer, and there is a risk of the swaths blowing - it's a relatively low-weight crop compared to things like wheat or barley. Most pea producers that I know use the desiccation method to save crop, time and fuel - after peas, they quickly move on to harvesting their other crops.

Peas are one of the trickier crops, I'd say, which is probably why we don't grow them. Grains and canola are a little more forgiving. We usually do wheat, barley, oats (for our cattle, not to sell) and/or canola. (I'm a very lucky soon-to-be chicken owner to be able to simply go out to our own bins to mix up some scratch!)

Peas for silage might be less difficult - I assume the whole plant would be used then, and not just the peas. We don't do silage, either, so I am no expert there.

I want to know why granery is not spelled grainery?

uno wrote:I want to know why granery is not spelled grainery?

It's actually spelled "granary," if you want to get really technical about it, LOL. But I imagine it's the same reason as so many other illogical spellings in the English language

First one I think is to you, Bowker Acres. Now if I am mistaken, please correct me. Are you the individual that has pea fields? Seems to me it was you, or maybe it was someone else's farm. if it is you, tell me about what you do with the peas? I would love to know, cause I would like to plant a pea garden, but I need to find out what is done with mass produced peas. Are they human eating type, or are they animal feed.

We do grow field peas. They are used for all kinds of things from eating to livestock feed, depending on the grade. (Grading of grain is a subject all on it's own....). These are the split peas that you would find in the store for soups etc, or the feed peas that are mixed into your livestock feed.

I also grow garden peas (sweet peas (shell peas) and snap peas (edible pod)) in the garden.

I am assuming you are wanting to grow peas for you chickens?? If this is the case, by question would be how you plan on harvesting these peas. We have large combines that eat up the peas after they are dry.

May I suggest if you would like a nutritious feed for your birds that you try pea sprouts. You soak the peas overnight in water then spread them in a shallow pan of soiless mix. When they are about 2-3 inches tall (takes very little time), clip them off and feed them to your birds - or eat them yourself - they are yummy and nutritious. The peas will not grow back, but the soil that is left can be thrown in the garden and you can start over again.

I don't know what else to tell you. If you have any more questions, ask away!

bcboy wrote:

What kind of juicer do I own? Masticating Slow Juicer with single auger.
I got mine at London Drugs.
That should keep you busy for awhile.

We got one from the internet that is made by Huron. It is an auger style and is awesome. I thought it was way too much money, but consider these things an investment. It is amazing and will make wheat grass easily too, which is actually why I initially purchased it. This is when I was making black elderberries. The pulp comes out one side the juice out the other. I did not like it for making juice from thick berries very much, or fruit, maybe I was doing something wrong. Apple juice came out like apple sauce, the pulp still out one side, but the juice was very thick. Unappetizing to drink. Same with the elderberries, the juice still had tons of pulp in it, thick. Black elderberry should be, according to what I have read, heated/cooked a bit or it can cause stomach distress. I have more comments to make on the posts later, but gotta head off to Armstrong soon to go and get some whey from the Armstrong Cheese Factory, smiling. The cheesemaker said they just throw it out, down the drain . I'm bringing buckets, she said bring BIG buckets, got three gallon ones and sounds like I am doing them a favour by taking the whey they throw out away, smiling. Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

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Wow I'm surprised someone with pigs doesn't get that cheese whey all the time! It is incredible that they just throw it all out!

Ta da!! Thanks for all the responses, loved them all. Sounds like field peas are a tricky thing, I could dedicate a special part of the garden in a little area. I have a small garden area about 10 X 10 that is separate and nothing grows in there but dill!!! I took out the perennials in that little bed last fall, put them in pots, cause I knew I was gonna do something with that, maybe peas, smiling. But then...who knows. Lots of fun this year with rotating crops and making the soil BEAUTIFUL, even more beautiful, with my new Mantis rototiller, smiling. Husband assembled it yesterday and gotta add some pics to the mantis thread. It is a workin' wonder, way, way better than my old one. Now gotta go and move some snow and try it in the earth. Son-in-Law told me he thought the ground would be thawed below that heavy layer of snow, wonder if he is right, smiling. I know we surely have not had it very cold this winter and the snow came so early, so maybe, just maybe, some beautiful earth can be found. Oops, this was about the granary. Gonna revisit this thread another time, gotta run, something fun!!

And Uno, you are always a piece of work yourself, wondering about wondering, I wondered too why it is not spelled with "grain" as the first five letters of that word, weird eh? Beautiful and wonderful days, CynthiaM.