Thrashing It Out!

12 years ago

Yesterday was a very pleasant fall day. I made use of several hours of it to thrash out what needed to be thrashed out. The threshing floor:

I decided to put the tarp down on the lawn instead of making room on the concrete in the carport. Flailing about with a tool handle worked fine for this little amount - 4 sheaves of naked oats (Nude Avena).

Didn't come up with much but about what was expected from a few grams of seed from Fedco:

After weeks of hanging, it still needs a few days in a basket if I'm going to get all the seeds for next year. Someone who has grown these oats before said just cooking them as one would brown rice works fine. They can then be eaten for breakfast or any meal.

The thrashing of the soybeans was a little uglier. I'll spare you the messy part but I did keep my big feet off of them! Here I am sorting out the trash:

One small handful at a time . . . The result was okay:

For some reason I used the camera for size comparison and took the picture with the cell phone . . . There are 7 pounds here. I could buy that much organically grown soybeans for less than $20. I like growing soybeans but sowing, tending, harvesting, & processing probably amounts to about 10 hours of work . . .

Who was it who said that I could extend the brief edamame season by blanching and freezing? I wish I'd thought of that at the right moment!

I think I could risk stagger sowing this variety (Bei) in this short season area. That's probably true with the one called "Beer Friend." Having a week or 2 is just not enuf time to get my brain in gear and get plenty harvested for edamame. Soon, the opportunity has passed I'm faced with the less-desirable tofu.

Oh well, give me a couple more years and I'll get it figured out. . !

Steve

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Comments (5)

digit
Original Author
12 years ago
Those are my links for:

Nude Avena and Tofu.

(Just in case you were apprehensive about clicking them . . . ;o)

digitS'
david52 Zone 6
12 years ago
I have several large flat baskets like those in your pick that I use for winnowing - there is a natural wind funnel between the house and the garage, and I can pretty easily separate out the good stuff from the chaff with the right wind speed. That depends, of course, on what it is I'm working on - say dry beans are can work in a stiff breeze, but something like sorghum, not so much.
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digit
Original Author
12 years ago
I don't seem to be coordinated enuf for winnowing . . . :o(

Climbing up a ladder and pouring the seed and chaff down on the tarp is more my style.

Now, if I could just get up and down the ladder a little more easily. . .)

Steve
david52 Zone 6
12 years ago
This past spring, I was trying to demonstrate to my 13 yr old daughter the fine art of winnowing, using dried beans still in their husk - needed to separate out the seed - so about 3 gallons of dried bean husk. So we pour the husks into an old burlap sack and start smacking the bag with an aluminum soft ball bat. That didn't work so well. So then it was pour the husks/seed out on the floor and walk on it. This seemed to work a bit better. So then sweep it all up and try to flip the big flat basket in the wind - this didn't work so well either. So then it was the pouring idea. That did better, but the beans were bouncing all over the place when they hit. So we had to find a high-sided container to drop them in. Somewhere in there, DD13 observed that since we were just going to use the seed for planting, and we only needed about 50-60, why not just pick out the seeds we need one by one?

Oh well.

Anyway, it brings to mind the discussion on how humankind used to have to work for food, prior to mechanization and all.
digit
Original Author
12 years ago
It took a little while to get the "hull-less oats" to this stage. It will take another week in the sun and hammering with a 2 by 4 to get the remaining hulls off the seed. Mostly, I just picked what was still in hulls out of the mix so that I'd have something to rinse and cook for lunch.

{{gwi:1226492}}

This was just supposed to be a "side" but after I'd tasted the cooked oats, another thought came to me: Brown Rice Salad!

Had a cucumber but no avocado and no can of black beans handy . . . . I decided to use green beans with my nice Thessaloniki tomato!

I diced some bacon. A little fresh cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice and it was ready! A very light lunch:

{{gwi:1226493}}

I used up about 20% of my seed to make this tiny amount. It was good but now I'd better not even think about any oats with brown sugar & cream for breakfast! Not very much of an "oat" flavor. While eating it, I just thought "brown rice" . . .

Steve