Perennial wheat success

[matt walker]

So, another thing I tried this year was some perennial wheat. I'm pretty sure all the perennial wheat out there is the result of Tim Peters' work, and I bought seeds labeled as such from Brown Envelope Seeds a couple years ago. I broadcast sowed them with my other cover crops and forgot about them, but now my hugel/swale mounds are covered with wheat heads, and I've harvested quite a few berries so far. I'm super excited about it, and I think I may have enough to share. If anyone wants some berries to use as seed, let me know and I'll be happy to mail you out a few. I'll get some pics up before too long here.

[mannytheseacow]

Interesting. I haven't been able to find any hardiness information. If it's zone 5 hardy I'd definitely like to try some. I had a good crop of annual wheat last year. I hand scythed it and it provided animal bedding all winter. It would be great to get this on my slopes in a perennial form.

[DrewInToledo]

[Myrth]

I am interested in learning more about it, hardiness, how it tolerates humidity, etc.

[matt walker]

Hi Myrth, I wish I could answer those questions for you. I really don't know. It's a result of the work of Tim Peters, but that's all the detail I have.

[matt walker]

I would just like to publicly apologize to Manny for the delay. Apparently I'm really, really bad at mailing. I got the seeds back last week due to insufficient postage, so I went to the post office and put more postage on. Now, a week later, I got them back again. No note this time, just a mysterious strip of white tape over the stamps. I went back to the post office, and the woman at the counter tried to jam it through a slot, and when it didn't fit (due to the plum pits) she told me it needed more postage. I think it made it to Illinois before they realized it didn't go through the test slot, so they sent it back to me. Ugh, this is a long way of saying, sorry dude, they are on their way for real now.

[mannytheseacow]

Ha! Sounds like the beaurocracy that I know. Rest assured, I'm sure someone was promoted to an executive position out of the whole affair.

No worries, Matt. It's far from planting time around here.

[DrewInToledo]

It's too late for this comment, but I'll post it anyway... You've obviously already paid for postage. Put his address on the return address and let it fly.

[matt walker]

Drew, you just made my day man. Genius.

[mannytheseacow]

That was quick. I came home today and found all sorts of stuff in the mail. Thanks again, Matt.

I had some failures on some plants that I ordered in the spring that were guaranteed. The replacements came in today too. I've got a couple plums in a pot inside and put 30 more raspberries, 10 jostaberry, and 2 pawpaw in the ground outside. Getting ready for a killing frost tonight; keeping my fingers crossed.