2012
Just getting around to the notion on growing wheat.
Unlike the spring wheat grown in North America, the British wheat is planted in the autumn (September or October), harvested in August and is some three times more productive at some 3 tons per acre.
Depth: correct depth for planting wheat is 4cm. This is the depth that a wild grass in the right situation would use its hulls to burrow itself down into the ground. Since we have bred the hulls off wheat grain it helps to give it a hand to get down to this correct depth.
Spacing: for spring sown wheat make holes at 15cm in both directions. For winter sown wheat space holes 15cm apart in one direction and 25cm in the other.
Kid's Guide (origin)
Autumn 2012: Sowed a 6m^2 bed sample. It was largely uprooted by squirrels I think, as I had left some parsnips in the ground.
Autumn 2013: Juliet gave me a bunch of wheat ears that she had grown, the kernels looked a little uneven, misshaped, but I hope to sow a mix of those and any that I gather from my own limited growth and some wheat kernels bought for food. Birds uprooted most of 2013/2014 seedlings
October 21st 2014
Spacing is a problem as many sites recommend more than 20cm between rows whereas this site seems to consider 10cm or 25 to 40 seeds per square foot ( 4 rows of ten seeds?) that's almost a seed per inch in rows 3 inches apart ?????
Ok I'll go for rows at 4in and 5 a row so 20 per square foot
Update: Didn't go as planned partly due to the soil being wet and lumpy. I drew 7 or 8 rows down 4.5 to 5 foot beds and drilled the seeds (some may have a couple of inches between them whilst others will be many per inch.
I covered the beds with reeds: