Thursday, November 26, 2009

Processing our quinoa


Our quinoa crop is one of our experiments that seem to be successful. We had a good crop in spite of very dry weather. I sowed a main crop of Temuco sold by The Real seed Catalog and a few plants from a bag of organic quinoa from a whole food shop. The Temuco cropped well but produced smaller seeds coated with a yellowy substance that requires the cooking water to be changed a few times to wash it off. The whole food shop seeds produces a better quality of crop of larger seeds without the yellow coating. Needless to say I am saving seed from the white ones to sow next year.
To harvest the crop I first rubbed out the seed heads between my hands to remove the seeds then sieved them through two sieve. The first sieve (made from a sky dish reflector) allowed the seed through and the second a finer sieve retained the seed and let through any dust. A slow process!

3 comments:

  1. A useful tip Chris. I have been thinking of trying to grow some Quinoa next year. If I do, it will be with Quinoa bought from the health food shop rather than the seeds from a seed company. I am sure this will be a cheaper way of buying it.

    Pete.

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  2. I could give you some of the seed I have saved if you like?

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  3. Yeah, okay, thanks. I'll collect some if they are ready maybe at the next meeting in December. Will the bamboo be ready about then to propagate, too?

    Pete.

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