My son does not want to wear normal shoes. He claims they are to tight around his feet. During our holiday in Holland we had him try wooden clogs (the traditional shoe in Holland) and he liked them. We ended up buying wooden clogs for the entire family and we all love our wooden clogs. The wood insolates wonderful and we do not get cold feet in them.
Flower has become more and more expensive, so I want to make my own grown from seed
I mostly use spelt flower, but I am also interested in einkorn flower, rye flower and oats. I absolutely wanted to use old varieties believing that these have better nutrients and believing these have fewer problems with pests. It turned out to be very difficult to find seed to buy. I had found seed from different old varieties, but that was from a company in Switzerland and they do not deliver to Germany. That was a shame, since they offered a useful amount of seed. Finally I found a company in Germany which offer al sorts of things for school and kid’s. They have a set of seeds with information cards for the school garden with Einkorn, Emmer, Rye, Spelt, Wheat and Oats. The only thing is that there are only 10 grams of one variety in a packet. That is for 1 – 3 m^2 depending on the variety. So I won’t be milling any grain next year, but harvesting seed. Maybe in 2 years I will harvest enough to mill some grains to flower.
Most of the grains can / should be sown in fall, only the oats need to be sown in the spring.
I took the effort of sowing this little amount of seed by the book. Making nice and need rows and taking the recommended distances in account. If I want to sow bigger patches of grain next year I will have to find another way of doing this. I put only a thin layer of straw over the soil. The soil is improving compared to what it was in spring, but far from how I would like it to be. Luckily the grains are not so demanding when it comes to the soil. I did find some life in the soil, earthworms and other insects.
I did wanted to ad a picture of the grains that had already come up, but when we got back from our holiday the frost knocked the plantlets over.
We started bright and early and the first half went very well. The second half was a bit snowy and very foggy as you can see in the picture the upper part of the windmill was not visible anymore.
The last 2 days of our holiday the wetter turned. It was cold and rainy. Our friend who takes care of our cats had sent us some pictures of our property with 10 cm of snow, but by the time we came home most of the snow was gone. The children of course loved the snow and made some snowmen right away. The garden looks a bit sad. I wanted to harvest seed from the green beans, but they have had frost now. I guess I will have to buy new seed for next year. I also still have some red beets in the ground which gave the snow a bit of red colouring. The root celery did not like the frost. I have to cut a bit more away, but the centre is still ok. Also leeks and carrots need to be harvested and processed and the last potatoes need to be harvested before the winter comes and before we can go on our trip. It also is time to plant the garlic for next year and the spring flowering flower bulbs. Not to forget lots of pressure canning to free freezer space to be able to put what’s left in one freezer, so lots to do.
Beautiful Chaos 