Heirloom grains making a comeback in North Bay gardens

While they’re not likely to displace our beloved tomatoes, peppers and squash, old-fashioned grains are starting to make their way into North Coast gardens, adding some amber waves - among other colors - to the rich summer harvest.

Intrepid local growers are experimenting with wheat, barley, amaranth, quinoa, hard corn and other grains, both for fun and food, as well as a larger mission to support the sharing economy and maintain a stable seed supply independent of the powerful seed companies that control so much of what is grown in the United States.

Sara McCamant is one of them. She grows grains to mill and eat. But she also enjoys the challenge of growing crops that aren’t so common in Sonoma County.

“I don’t think a majority of gardeners are going to grow grains. But a large group of us is interested in growing a diverse crop,” said the co-founder of the Sebastopol Seed Exchange Library and Garden, which promotes seed sharing by growing and storing seed to share with the community free of charge.

“We want to know how other things grow and we’re excited about the diversity of some of the heirloom wheats. We believe in the importance of keeping those varieties going.”

Grain is experiencing a renaissance among small farms in the country, McCamant said.

“A lot of people are excited about producing other products out of some of these old grains. They’re beginning to be grown commercially but all on a small scale.”

Heirloom grains will be among the seeds up for the taking at the group’s next monthly seed exchange on March 31 at St. Stephen’s Church in Sebastopol. Home gardeners can come by and collect free open-pollinated heirloom seed for a wide variety of crops from 9 a.m. to noon. The Seed Libray is also open from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. every Wednesday through May.

The group maintains a quarter-acre garden at the church, where they grow crops and test them for adaptability to local growing conditions. They then harvest seed and bank it in a room at the church given over to their seed library. Some 160 different varieties of seeds, including wheat, dried beans, a multitude of vegetables and some flowers and herbs, are stored in glass jars arranged on bookshelves behind drapes to keep them dark.

“There’s a whole revival of heritage wheat in some parts of this country,” McCamant said. “They add a wonderful quality to a garden. They’re very different.”

She will teach a free class from 11 a.m. to noon at the next Community Seed Exchange on “Growing Grains in the Home Garden.” It’s familiar ground. Her family farm, White Mountain Farm, in the San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado, has been growing organic quinoa for 30 years. Considered the “Mother Grain of the Incas,” quinoa has been a staple in the Andean diet for centuries. High in protein and essential amino acids, quinoa, cooked much like rice, in recent years has become an increasingly popular staple in many dishes.

Quinoa is a small seed about the size of millet with a rich and nutty taste. It can be substituted for nearly any grain in almost any recipe.

“It’s really a beautiful tall plant that grows 4 to 6 feet tall,” McCamant said. She likes to plant densely and then thin them out, eating the greens as an alternative to spinach.

The quinoa plant starts out green and then flames out with seed heads of purple, orange and gold. Plant in May, she said, for a September harvest.

Another great grain the Seed Exchange has grown is Sonora wheat. One of the oldest wheats grown in North America, it was brought north from Mexico in the 18th century, following the mission chain up the coast. It is a staple for whole wheat tortillas and many adventurous bakers are turning on to its nutty taste.

The Natural Seed Co., which started in Sonoma County and is now based in Chico, sells the seed. They recommend planting a legume crop prior to planting wheat to ensure proper nitrogen levels in the soil. Disk the ground a few weeks before planting in the spring. Allow the weeds to start growing and then disk again, they say, allowing the weed seed to germinate and be destroyed.

McCamant said growing grains isn’t practical in a small space or if you have only a few raised beds.

“But enough people have bigger spaces around here and they are really beautiful,” she said.

From a 20-foot bed of wheat she usually gets a gallon and a half of grain, which she might add to other flours. She has several friends with mills. But if you really get into it, electric and hand cranked mills can be purchased for less than $200.

One grain, or “pseudo grain” that is both ornamental and edible and available at the exchange is Amaranth. It comes in a variety of deep colors, from red to orange and gold.

It produces tiny kernels in the seed head. You can grind it into flour, cook like a porridge or pop it into a treat that is somewhat like the puffed grains packaged as cereals, McCamant said. You will have to thresh and winnow your seeds, or use some kind of fan to separate the chaff from the seed.

The seed library grows several heirloom varieties of amaranth. McCamant’s favorite to grow for grain to eat is Golden Grain.

They also have seed for barley, an early summer grain crop. Plant it in early spring and harvest in early summer for use in soups.

One of the most popular grains the seed exchange grows in its garden are dry corns.

“We started seeing how there was so much contamination of corn from genetically modified corn. We really wanted to protect and care for corn as a grain that has been grown for 10,000 years on this continent,” she said.

Most people are familiar with dry corn only as the colorful Indian Corn sold in the fall for Thanksgiving decorations. But in Mexico it is a staple food crop, used to create masa - the corn dough that goes into tortillas. Volunteers with the seed exchange teach how to make masa.

The seed exchange has five varieties of dried corn, including the multicolored Painted Mountain and Floriani Red Flint corn, once a staple in Northern Italy selected as a great grain for polenta. Other heirloom varieties available at the exchange include Zapatista blue and Oaxaca Green Dent, which comes in various shades of green. Baker Creek Seeds, which carries Oaxaca Green in their catalogue, said the deeply dented kernels are used by the Zapotec people for their green flour tamales. It’s also good for cornbread. The plants reach 7 feet tall and produce ears that are 6 to 10 inches. The variety is very drought tolerant.

McCamant said because all the seed held by the seed library is grown locally over several generations, it is better adapted to the region.

“If they’ve been grown year after year they start to adapt,” she said, “and we select out the ones that grow the best. So we’re slowing moving the plants toward a good selection for this environment.”

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or at 707-521-5204. On Twitter @megmcconahey.