Sandra White: Port Townsend Dry Bed Farming

Port Townsend Dry Bed Farming

I live around the corner from this project and yet knew nothing about it.  I was walking my dogs and came upon a class of  Port Townsend High School seniors taking a field trip to see this experimental garden which will be grown with less water than normal farms.   This farm is located in an area know as "Happy Valley" which is sheltered from the wind, and has sunshine all day. 

                                  image of experimental farm sign

The land belongs to a Port Townsend citizen and was donated for this project.  The crops are  varied and planted in rows with white wooden markers.  There are 19 varieties of wheat, 18 varieties are a trial for Washington State University.  Wheat is the most widely cultivated plant in the world.  There are also rows of  flax, corn, barley, oats, amaranth (which has 16% more protein than corn, rice or wheat) and  millet, a relatively new grain for Americans (used for bird seed ).  I also saw some very beautiful and tall Sunflowers. 

   image of  experimental grains                                    image of  experimental grains

image of plants in dry bed farmingimage of plants in dry bed farmingimage of marker post  in dry bed garden

Harvesting will be in July, August and September.  Hopefully, we will have some news on how the experiment went and what was produced. 

http://www.porttownsendrealestatesearch.net/

 

 

 

 

0 commentsSandra White • July 08 2009 07:59PM

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