Saturday, July 21, 2007

Growing Bread from Scratch Part 1 of 4: Soil Prep

We've been making our own bread since my oldest was a few months old, but there was that time we decided to grow our own bread from scratch. It takes some time a piece of your lawn, but it was terrific! I'd been thinking about because I was curious and then, my oldest daughter showed signs of getting ready for her First Communion. I thought it would be great to go through all those parables about sowers and reapers and tares and so on. I actually had hoped to have a home Mass and make the hosts out of this wheat. Well, that didn't happen, but it was a really great experience.

We have a side yard on a bit of a hill that I hated to mow so... that became our field. You can use anything with sun. Wheat is grass, so if you have a lawn, you can grow wheat. Since you won't starve if you don't get the maximum possible yield, it's OK if your soil is bad or you don't have full sun. If all you have is deep shade, try a smaller version in a sunny window! Dig up as much of a field as you like (or have energy for!). Just get the grass off and loosen the soil. If you are doing more than a few square feet, renting a tiller is a wise investment! We tilled ("we" being my dear dedicated home schooling hero of a husband!) 1/100th of an acre (about 15' by 30'). That gave us enough for a theoretical 60 loaves of bread. I think 3' by 3' will give you enough for at least 2 loaves if it's full sun.

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