Welcome
2009 Island Grains participants show off stone-milled flour from wheat they grew themselves.
Yes, you can grow your own wheat, rye, oats, barley and more.
We're all pretty used to grain being grown in the Prairies on massive tracts of land, relying on tractors, combines and other expensive machinery. And yes, it makes sense to grow grain this way, in order to produce enough to feed ourselves and those in other countries. That said, it is entirely reasonable to grow grains on a small scale -- enough to feed yourself, your family, and maybe some friends.
While yields vary depending on the grain, your climate, soil fertility, weather, and other factors, it's entirely possible to grow 60lbs of wheat (for example) on 1/40 of an acre, or approximately 1,100 sq.ft. And you don't even need to own a combine. Grains such as wheat, rye, quinoa, barley and oats grow quite well here on the West Coast: it's just a matter of know-how.
IslandGrains.com is here to provide that know-how. This website is dedicated to providing easy-to-understand, step-by-step information on how to grow wheat, barley, oats, quinoa and other grains on a small scale (e.g. your garden).
Using This Website
There are many, many individuals and organizations out there with invaluable information of benefit to small-scale grain growers. We hope that this website will become a central resource to help connect potential grainies with that information. To this end, we will continue to update our Information & Resources section as our own learning increases. Other helpful sections under ongoing development are:
- Grains 101 (a collection of information regarding all the different kinds of grains available to backyard growers, with pros and cons from a West Coast small-scale grain growers' perspective)
- How to Grow Your Own Grains (a summary of information gathered through our 2009 & 2010 workshops, personal experience, and found resources, featuring input from some of the most knowledgeable and passionate grainies on the West Coast)
We also invite you to post your own experiences, advice, cautions and comments.
Workshops
We host workshops to teach potential grainies the fundamentals in an interactive environment. Whether you’ve never gardened or you’ve been farming for 30 years, we can help you learn how to grow grains on a small scale. Click here for details on Island Grains' workshops.
What is Island Grains?
Island Grains is a resource and support network for those of us interested in backyard grain growing. Island Grains launched as a hands-on workshop experience in 2009, and offered Vancouver Island's first grain CSA in 2010.
Explore Island Grains
December 27th, 2010 - 12:19
I am starting up a community supported farm that will focus on growing grains and other staples. I am excited about this website. I have experimented with some of the grains for the last 3 years and have a lot to learn. It is especially a challenge to figure out the threashing on a small scale. For instance walking on the wheat in a box might be fine for the amount for one family but at the scale of 10, 20 families or more we need some intermediate scaled tools. If would especially like to have more info on specific varieties for this area. (I am on Guemes Island, East of you in the San Juan islands)
December 27th, 2010 - 13:17
Sequoia — how wonderful! Grains would be a great addition to a CSA. For that size of production it would be helpful to track down a combine to use, if that’s at all possible on your Island. In 2010 we cut our wheat and rye with scythes, transported it with pick-up trucks, and fed it into a stationary combine because 1/2 acre was just too much to process by hand. (1/2 acre of mixed grains just didn’t warrant driving the combine to directly harvest the grains.) You can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEkOR5xGhw. We harvested and threshed around 900lbs of rye and wheat this way. There are also thresher machines for your scale of growing grains, but they can be expensive. We add these tools to our “Info & Resources” page on this website as we find them.
As for varieties: most wheats (not spelt!) are easy to hand thresh. We found Kamut (“Polish wheat”) did really well, with very large seed heads which makes threshing more efficient. Red Fife grew 6′ so risked lodging (falling over) in the wind/rain. The modern wheat we grew (hard white spring wheat) was only 2′ high and consistent which makes harvesting by hand or combine very easy. Quinoa should grow well for you, since we can grow it here in the Cowichan: great yields, and very healthy. Rye grew spectacularly well, but was quite tall (8-9′) so you risk lodging. The straw is a handy byproduct. Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds may have other recommendations for you: http://www.saltspringseeds.com. Hope that helps! Please keep us posted on your own findings
January 13th, 2011 - 06:31
I was absolutely thrilled to find your site. We’re a small farm just southeast of you in Snohomish County. We’ve been experimenting with small grains for both rotational crops, human consumption and livestock consumption. All the small grains we’ve tried to grow have grown very well but harvesting has been an issue. We’ve been reviewing the equipment options for harvesting amounts from 1/8ac up to about 5ac. I did find the Ferrari site and looked through those options, but top of the candidates list right now is an AllCrop if I can find one. Thank you for all the work you’re doing to bring small grains production back to Western WA and backyards everywhere.
February 14th, 2011 - 12:21
Greetings! Would love to host you up here on Cortes Island at Linnaea Farm for a workshop. Interested?
Tamara
February 20th, 2011 - 08:54
I definitely want to visit Cortes! I’ll send you an email to discuss this further — thank you for visiting our site
March 25th, 2011 - 14:33
I am a Peace Corps volunteer in Jamaica. Finding your website has been such a help here. I have been growing some organic grains and teaching others, but I needed to know more. Thank you.
April 4th, 2011 - 10:25
We don’t see much of this out East, unfortunately! I live in Quebec and have been interested in backyard grain growing since my grandpa started talking about it years ago… nice info, thank you…
January 16th, 2012 - 08:56
I have seen a number of small scale walk-behind combines such as this one:
http://detail.en.china.cn/provide/detail,1085477670.html
Usually produced in China seemingly for the east Asian market. They come either self-propelled, or as an attachment to a walking tractor, costing (if my conversions are correct) between $1000 and $4000, and in most cases the specs claim that they work for both rice and wheat.
Does anyone have any experience with these? I am sure they work, given the apparent size of the industry. How hard are they to import to the US/Canada? How reliable/efficient? How adequately do they thresh?