Steam Team Harvest August 6, 2011

The Steam Team’s activities this year have explored the traditional agricultural journey from broadcasting to bread (seed to slice)! After ploughing and harrowing, Wheat and Barley were sown, broadcast by hand, resulting in a fine, even wheat crop. Hard grained bread wheat was chosen which we hope will result in a good grain yield and useful straw of normal length.
We are currently planning to harvest our crop on Sunday 24th July – depending on the weather - using a reaper–binder from the 1930’s pulled by a David Brown tractor from 1953. We are hoping for sunshine on the days that follow so that the stooks (tied bundles of ripening corn) can be left to dry, both in the field and on the rick-stack. Later in the year, we plan to thresh the crop using our Ransomes threshing drum powered by the ‘Empress of Britain’ Burrell steam traction engine. This will be followed by milling the wheat grain using the Alton Watermill, a quern (a hand turned millstone), or a small portable mill.
The proof of the pudding will come when we use the resulting wholemeal flour to bake our own bread!