Heritage wheat harvested

This week members of FoWG’s Parks Group harvested most of the wheat growing at the entrance to Windmill Gardens.

Planted on a very wet day in March all four types of wheat had germinated well but for some reason one of the three heritage varieties planted, Atle, failed to progress and by June hardly any survived.

The other two heritage wheats, Damants spring mix and Meteor, grew well, as did the small patch of modern Paragon wheat. By June we were looking forward to a good harvest.

However, all the wheat was severely damaged by a very heavy summer thunderstorm. Massive hail stones flattened much of the ripening crop and when we came to harvest it was a case of picking much of the wheat off the ground.

In the end we gathered in two sheaves of the bearded Damants and two sheaves of Meteor.

The small patch of Paragon a modern short variety has still to fully ripen and will be harvested later.