Bernard and his wife Francine live on a small 88 acre hobby farm in Saint Antoine, New Brunswick (about 30km north of Moncton). They keep a few animals and use the land to produce pasture, hay and grain. As part of their annual crop rotation, they plant various grains as green manure, animal feed, and to produce food for their own table. Bernard is a very strong proponent of what he calls the “Back to Basics” philosophy, believing that our food should be grown naturally, and that the use of chemicals in modern agriculture is the source of many illnesses which plague our society today.
Although sufficient space may be an issue for some, growing grain is not as difficult as it appears. It’s not even necessary to use complicated machinery! Once the ground is prepared in the spring, the seeds can be broadcast by hand. At harvest time, the stalks can be cut with a scythe or a sickle and tied in bundles. It can be threshed with a flail and winnowed with a window fan. Bernard assures us that with a bit of practice, you soon find a system that works best for you.
Because he’s growing on a larger scale for animal feed as well, Bernard first hired a local farmer with his combine to harvest his grain. As the years passed, however, he was able to refurbish an old grain thresher and binder which he now uses himself. The binder is used to cut the plant stalks and bind them in bundles to facilitate transport, and the thresher separates the seeds from the plant. Using these old machines instead of a combine is a bit more labour intensive, but it is still a time saver for a small scale production.
I always marvel at the fact that nature prepares some wholesome food for us already neatly packaged in a kernel of grain. Also, I must admit that there is a certain pride when you sit down at the dinner table to enjoy food that you produced yourself.
Bernard has the following grains offered in the 2012 Member Seed Directory:
Torch River Oats – a hulless variety he uses to make oatmeal and feed the animals
Acadia Wheat – a heritage variety of spring wheat that has been grown in the Maritimes since the 1940's. Bernard claims that it has very good qualities for baking bread and pastries.
Red Fife Wheat – a dependable hard, red spring wheat that was popular in 19th century Canada. Also a good bread flour.
Winter Hardy Spelt - a productive, low-gluten grain that is easy to grow – even in poor soil. Since spelt has a hull that must be removed before it can be ground into flour, and there are no de-hullers available on the market for small scale production, Bernard built a clever machine to do the job.
Bernard’s de-huller consists mainly of two rubber discs: one rotates, powered by a electric motor, and the other one is stationary. Spelt is fed between the two discs through a hopper, and the friction removes the hull from the kernel. It de-hulls approximately 75 % of the kernels, with efficiency increasing when all the kernels are of uniform size.