I am a truck farmer and it is a very different world growing and handling a wheat crop. We are expecting a reasonable crop now we have to plan the harvest and storage of the crop.

We need about 50 tons of wheat to feed the chickens for a year. I would also like to experiment with making flour to put in our Eatwell Boxes and sell at the farmers market. To store the crop we are installing 3 feed towers. Each will hold around 20 tons and they are 20 feet tall and 9 feet in diameter. The concrete foundations have to be heavy and strong. We may have gone a little over the top by having 12 inch deep concrete with ½” rebar but better to be safe than sorry. Fernando, Roberto and Arturo poured the three pads last Saturday morning. I bought a concrete mixer that fits on the back of the tractor as it will likely prove useful around the farm for other jobs. Mixing so much concrete (14 yards) was hard work but took less time than we expected.

The feed towers will arrive in a couple of weeks when the concrete has had time to cure. I have also placed an order for an auger that will lift the wheat up to 21 feet high to fill the bins. The grain auger is made in Canada but will be shipped to us from the ‘local’ dealer in Washington State.

The combine harvester will need to dump the wheat into a trailer that will then feed into the auger. I still need to find an appropriate trailer.

Watch this space for more on my journey to becoming a real farmer.