Hey All, Barry thanks for the well wishes:) I hope you had a good summer! Send me a mail and let me know how your garden did. Megan, I would be glad to trade with you, mail me a list of what you want and I would like your garlics, carrots, leeks , and basil when they are ready. Send me direct at liznbeatle@aol.com and we can trade addresses and such, thanks very much. Lisa Guile, I would be happy to trade for your Cambells 1327, Mortgage Lifter, Amano Orange, Waltham butternut, fordhook acorn, and buttercrunch. I only have a few left of Sudduth but I have all the rest. Please mail me at the above to exchange addys. Thanks for trading:) Lisa

poking around ECHO (love that place!), I've answered my own question: HARVEST Basically, you must thrash it like mankind has always done until the invention of the thrashing machine. The three stages include let the heads dry out, knock the grain from the heads, and winnow the grain. Many of you live where local folks know far more than I about such techniques. For others, here is what we do with small quantities of seed (which must be kept separate from other varieties). Cut the heads when the grain appears to be mature, and put them somewhere to dry. If left too long much of the grain may shatter (fall to the ground). Grain easily shatters from the dried heads. Put a few heads in a burlap bag and beat it against the cement floor a few times to knock it loose, or strike the bags with a stick. Then place the grain in a 5-gallon bucket (many other containers would be suitable). You will notice that a lot of chaff comes along with the grain. This is where winnowing comes in. Place an empty 5-gallon bucket in front of a fan and, cautiously at first, pour some grain and chaff into the empty bucket. A steady wind will accomplish the same thing as the fan, but a gusty wind will cause problems. The grain is denser and will fall closer to the fan than the chaff. Quickly one begins to get a feel for how far the buckets should be from the fan, and at what height to hold the one bucket in order for the grain to land in the empty bucket and the chaff to blow far enough to miss it. Pour the grain back and forth until it appears to be clean. Final cleanup can be done by swirling and shaking the grain around gently. Remaining chaff will "float" to the top like ice in water, and can be removed by hand. Here is a link that might be useful: amaranth at ECHO

We grew several varieties of edible amaranth last year and really enjoyed them. True, they didn't taste much different than a mild green, but we absolutely loved having that much green stuff available in the garden at any time for either a quick fresh salad or a stir fry. Our plants maintained a nice 2-foot height and stayed nice and leafy throughout the season. We didn't have as good of luck with the red-leafed variety as we did with the green ones. I have my seeds in the garden as we speak and I'm looking forward to this year's batch! I ordered the seeds from evergreenseeds.com If you're looking for nutritional punch in your greens, give okinawa spinach a try if you can find a plant. It is very hearty and is told to have cholesterol-reducing properties even. Jane

I have not read all the posts, there's lots of them, possibly i'm repeating what people have already said. In my experience, chickens are not fond of beans in general I have fed them my mung sprouts that started to go off, some chickend will eat them delightedly others not interested. You'll have to find out. Use a small amount from bulk in a store to find out what they think. Chicken mixes often have peas, these are softer and easier to digest, i believe they are split. For protein you could try a few 'pseudo cereals' These are plants similar to grains which are not actually grasses. As they are not grasses, some have complete proteins. As vegetarians will know, neither grains or beans are a complete protein. They both contain amino acids (beans also contain a lot of starch which is a carbohydrate) and when combined can make a complete protein. (hence the grain and pea mixture) Crops which do have complete proteins of varying quality are: amaranth, quinoa, hemp, sunflower and buckwheat. In most countries you aren't going to be able to grow hemp in your garden though it is one of the best things for them with it's essential fatty acids. Giving them some flax, which is also easy to grow in cold places, will boost the omega 3 content of their eggs. Amaranth is one of the most productive things you can probably grow in a cold place, it is a weed and very tolerant. Lambsquarters is closely related and also good, not as prolific. If you get bulk amaranth it will usually sprout. My chickens love these, though i am doubtful that quinoa is good for them in large doses. Incans rinsed it quite a lot to remove the saponin coating, although birds have digestive systems much more tolerant of these seed coatings, seeds being one of their main foods. It is reportedly hard to grow at low altitudes, i have not tried very hard. Sunflowers are also excellent for their oil in the diet, just give them the heads as you may do for wild birds. The best source of protein for chickens is bugs, they eat al ot of these in the wild. Consider growing meal worms for them, my husband and i war getting into this soon. He raised them as a kid to feed the family iguana, they are quite simple, they are actually the larva of a beetle. They need some vegative matter to eat, like clean compost (vegetable trimmings and such, not cooked leftovers, the chickens will probably eat those anyway) and some sawdust. There are more details but in in general it is pretty easy. He has not tried it on a really large scale so we'll see. Would share some links with you but he has them, i don't know where he's been researching. There is some info on the web and also books on raising them for chickens, maybe i'll track them down later.