Introduction

I live on the Darling Downs where the winters are often surprisingly cold. The frequent frosts, cold winds, and (at times) overcast weather can make gardening a very bleak activity for those who might otherwise enjoy the great outdoors.

In winter our roses are generally just a bunch of dead-looking, spiky sticks and many of the deciduous trees have lost most or all of their leaves. Tropical plants like Hibiscus quickly succumb to frost and turn brown and crisp by winter's end. Such plants generally make a complete recovery during spring, which often betrays the fact that they appeared lifeless and ugly for the preceding 3-4 months of the year.

Photos above: Some typical sights in the winter garden. 

Left: Bare twigs and dry leaves against a dull, grey sky. 

Right: Frost damage on leaves of an ornamental ginger.

By late autumn and winter all of my tropical exotics are tucked away in frost free niches or buried beneath layers of frost protection sheets, and will remain in this largely dormant state until I bring them out again come spring time.

I admit that by European and American standards our winters are actually very mild, but still we do experience many extended cold spells. During such times, the chilly, dry winds blow relentlessly from the south, followed by calm, crystal-clear nights and frosty mornings. The minimum temperatures frequently fall well below zero degrees Celcius. The cold stings our fingers and numbs our toes. Garden hoses and taps sometimes freeze solid on such mornings and may not thaw out until almost midday.

This winter I resolved to grow plants that are well suited to a temperate climate. For a change I wanted to grow plants that stay relatively lush and green throughout even the coldest and bleakest months of the year. I eventually settled on ancient wheat and barley varieties.

"Why wheat and barley?" you may ask. Well the idea was not a new one, as I have entertained the idea of growing ancient wheat for many years. I came from a farming background and have always been interested in grasses... and wheat and barley are grasses, after all. They seemed like the logical choice, plus the seed can be retained for future use, while the spent plants at the end of season can be recycled as garden mulch. I have always been thrilled by the idea of growing the same plant varieties that our ancestors grew all those thousands of years ago.

Photo: Something different for the winter garden. Lush, green wheat! 

Black winter emmer in foreground. 'Federation' wheat in background.

I obtained seed samples from various Government and non-Government research facilities. The bulk of the seed samples came from the Australian Grains Genebank, but I also sourced several additional varieties from helpful researchers in the Department of Primary Industries, The Australian Winter Cereals Collection, the Waite Arboretum, and the National Trust of Australia (WA). I also decided to source a few varieties of "generic" heirloom seed from organic farmers and seed merchants, just to get a feel for what is being grown in modern Australia. These varieties can hopefully be compared with the more ancient varieties from the genebank.

Although I am mainly interested in ancient wheat varieties, I am also very fond of historical Australian cultivars, especially those dating from the Colonial era up until the mid-1950s.

I began in early Autumn with what could only be described as a "clean slate" (i.e. a roughly 60 metre square patch of bare ground which had once served as a vegetable plot). I also conducted a few test plantings in nearby garden beds. Prior to deep tilling, I broadcast some pelleted organic manure, gypsum, and slow-release fertilizer granules over the surface at the recommended rates.

Photo: An early test planting of Khorasan wheat creates

 a leafy green border backed by conventional flower plants.

The soil here is a kind of reddish-brown, colluvial clay and is slightly elevated, with a gentle slope to the north. A considerable amount of grit, compost, gypsum and manures have been dug into this soil over the past 30 odd years. In the days before suburbia, the ground formed part of a large cultivation paddock on dairying country. Generally speaking, the soil here is of a much lighter type than the heavy black, self-mulching clays found on the lower Darling Downs alluviums.

In this blog I hope to document my sojourn into the interesting field of cereal cultivation on a suburban block on the eastern Darling Downs. I will also discuss the many interesting old varieties that I have decided to trial.

The photos below show the prepared ground which had to be repaired in a few places due to a deluge we experienced in late April to early May. We had 140 mm of rain over a few days. The rain stopped just in time before any major damage could be done, but it still caused some washing and rilling along the edges of the plot. The ground also remained sodden for many weeks after, which prevented an early planting. But as is always the case, the sun and wind eventually dried the earth again. I ran over the ground a few weeks later with a tiller and began to work out plot dimensions and row widths to accommodate all of the intended varieties. The rain had caused the surface to become rather cloddy, but I decided to sow directly into this rather than waste more time with preparation.

Photos: A bare canvas in mid-May, ready to accommodate the different varieties