Alice, I commented on your piece that Chris Smaje bumped. I have a small farm with energy ,water ,and most of our food off grid…or close. Food drying, milling and storage are major responsibilities and deserve building infrastructure. Ultimately the success of your food system depends on how it tastes and having very good cooks working together with the production side of your farm should take you a long way towards success.
Hi Bruce, yes! I remember you from the previous post on Chris's blog. Your project sounds brilliant!
At the zoom last Wednesday we talked quite a bit about food storage; do you store grain or potatoes onsite at your farm. What kind of measures do you put in place to protect them?
If you have any links or images of the building infrastructure your talking about that would be amazing. We actually have a windmill just down the road from our flat in Brixton so I've seen the basic principle for milling grain (although they replaced the sail driven grind stones with an electric steel roller mill, since the 20th century developments now block out the wind!)
Joel and I recently watched a hidden life, I'm not sure how accurate it was, but the water mill was beautiful.
I totally agree about good cooks. I wonder if the promise of regular sociable hours in a care home/forest school canteen, plus access to organic ingredients might attract some experienced cityworn chefs... 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Alice, My drying shed has a south facing wall that is corrugated metal. It is vented at the top of the wall such that as the wall heats air is warmed and vented upward. On the north facing wall the roof joists are very well screened and open to outside air. All vents are super well screened with rodent control being imperative. My shed is totally passive but there are ways to use small electric fans to great advantage.
Controlling plant diseases like ergot is part of farming knowledge but drying and storing grains so they don’t mold is critical also.. Mycotoxins need control at each step. The open end of a corncob ( due to birds) will usually have some moldy kernels when field dried. So as you husk and deseed your corn you avoid the few moldy ones .near the end. Also if you see black on occasional kernels , chuck them. And finally you can nixtamalize your corn to destroy what little mold might remain.
Having a microscope can help identify diseases like fusarium on dried grain. Pigs are very astute in their choice of grain. If it has lots of toxins they will just refuse to eat it. There are toxins called vomitoxins which will cause pigs to vomit but pigs usually know something is wrong. If you offer grain to a pig and they don’t eat it there is usually a problem. I doubt a human would know something was wrong until symptoms arrive.
Main point is to research solar walls and how to best fit one to meet your location and drying needs. Make it very rodent proof. Mostly to avoid nasty problems. I usually grow two potato crops, spring and fall because it is warm here and they don’t keep well.
Thanks so much Bruce, this is incredibly useful. I don't know of many people growing their own grain as part of their regen systems, so I feel like this knowledge is particularly hard to come by.
Alice, I commented on your piece that Chris Smaje bumped. I have a small farm with energy ,water ,and most of our food off grid…or close. Food drying, milling and storage are major responsibilities and deserve building infrastructure. Ultimately the success of your food system depends on how it tastes and having very good cooks working together with the production side of your farm should take you a long way towards success.
Hi Bruce, yes! I remember you from the previous post on Chris's blog. Your project sounds brilliant!
At the zoom last Wednesday we talked quite a bit about food storage; do you store grain or potatoes onsite at your farm. What kind of measures do you put in place to protect them?
If you have any links or images of the building infrastructure your talking about that would be amazing. We actually have a windmill just down the road from our flat in Brixton so I've seen the basic principle for milling grain (although they replaced the sail driven grind stones with an electric steel roller mill, since the 20th century developments now block out the wind!)
Joel and I recently watched a hidden life, I'm not sure how accurate it was, but the water mill was beautiful.
I totally agree about good cooks. I wonder if the promise of regular sociable hours in a care home/forest school canteen, plus access to organic ingredients might attract some experienced cityworn chefs... 🤞🏻🤞🏻
Alice, My drying shed has a south facing wall that is corrugated metal. It is vented at the top of the wall such that as the wall heats air is warmed and vented upward. On the north facing wall the roof joists are very well screened and open to outside air. All vents are super well screened with rodent control being imperative. My shed is totally passive but there are ways to use small electric fans to great advantage.
Controlling plant diseases like ergot is part of farming knowledge but drying and storing grains so they don’t mold is critical also.. Mycotoxins need control at each step. The open end of a corncob ( due to birds) will usually have some moldy kernels when field dried. So as you husk and deseed your corn you avoid the few moldy ones .near the end. Also if you see black on occasional kernels , chuck them. And finally you can nixtamalize your corn to destroy what little mold might remain.
Having a microscope can help identify diseases like fusarium on dried grain. Pigs are very astute in their choice of grain. If it has lots of toxins they will just refuse to eat it. There are toxins called vomitoxins which will cause pigs to vomit but pigs usually know something is wrong. If you offer grain to a pig and they don’t eat it there is usually a problem. I doubt a human would know something was wrong until symptoms arrive.
Main point is to research solar walls and how to best fit one to meet your location and drying needs. Make it very rodent proof. Mostly to avoid nasty problems. I usually grow two potato crops, spring and fall because it is warm here and they don’t keep well.
https://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/ae/ae-108.html
Various drying shed options
Thanks so much Bruce, this is incredibly useful. I don't know of many people growing their own grain as part of their regen systems, so I feel like this knowledge is particularly hard to come by.