Page 145 - The Lost Ways

On the other hand, spring wheat should be planted as early as the ground can be worked
in spring. To grow quality wheat, here are the steps to follow:

❖ Make sure to do the initial plowing in the fall.
❖ Till and sow in the spring.
❖ An evenly distributed crop is achieved when seeds are divided into two parts: one
part planted from east to west and the other from north to south. It can also be
planted in rows.
❖ Cover the seeds by raking the soil over them.
❖ For best results, firm the bed to make good seed–soil contact.

Through constant care and attention, your wheat will grow, and you’ll notice that the
stalks will turn from green to yellow to brown. Once the heads are heavy with grain that
pulls the top toward the earth, that’s when you should harvest.

To make sure that your wheat is ready for the kitchen, test out a few grains by eating
them. If it’s anything less than firm and crunchy, the wheat is not yet ready.

Once you’ve harvested your wheat, you can convert it into flour by grinding it using a
hand-cranked grinder or wheat grinder. If you don’t have one of those, you can always go
back to the most basic way of grinding wheat, which is to use stones or hand grinding.

It may take a lot of effort and time, but the advantage is that you can control what the
texture of the resulting flour will be.

How to Make Sourdough Starter

Now that you have your flour, it’s time to talk about the rising agent that most homemade
bread used in the early 1800s: sourdough starter.

Materials

❖ Jar or container with preferably wide-mouthed openings
❖ Filtered or spring water

❖ Flour
❖ Cheesecloth to cover the jar

Procedure

❖ Pour ½ cup water and add ½ cup flour into your jar.

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