Last Friday afternoon I went to TS&L Seed in Woodland to pick up 1000 lbs of Montezuma Red Oats. I had tried in vain to get spelt and durum wheat seed, and my back-up was to plant oats.

All day Friday, Matt Cooley and his crew cultivated the field with spring tines to kill weeds and the previous wheat crop that had germinated after the rain. We then had a clean seed bed to plant our crops into.

On Saturday morning the following crops were planted: 

8 acres Montezuma Oats

8 acres Metcalf Malting Barley

8 acres Triticale #118

8 acres Expresso Hard Red Winter Wheat.

This should provide us with a good basis for our Grain and Bean CSA, which we hope to start in the fall of 2009. Next summer we hope to grow corn (both for corn meal and popping), millet and maybe buckwheat.

These crops are being organically grown for us by Mark and Matt Cooley. They have all the “real farmer” tools for these crops. The tools and tractors we have are specifically for vegetable production. We pay them hourly for the work they do for us.