Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

The New York Times today (Flour that Has the Flavor of Home) tells the story of Cheryl Maffei and Jonathan Stevens, who own Hungry Ghost Bread in Northampton, Mass. They had to persuade 100 customers to grow plots of wheat in their front yards because none of the local farmers knew "which varieties of wheat would thrive in the area, and the cleaning, milling and storage facilities needed for flour production didn’t exist locally." There are places in the U.S. where wheat hasn't been grown or milled for 50+ years and the knowledge and infrastructure for producing flour locally has all but vanished. Here at Tumbledown Farm, where we raise a little wheat in our own backyard (see our wheat page), we know what Ms. Maffei means when she says that she has engaged in some "consciousness raising" with her customers. Some of our neighbors show up each summer as I begin to harvest the wheat and swear they've never seen wheat growing, though there are still some farmers in this part of Indiana who grow wheat as a minor variant to the soybean and corn rotation. As Ms. Maffei says, "there is a long road ahead. The closest miller who can produce the flour they need is in Quebec. 'With our infrastructure here, we also lost the knowledge of wheat and milling and storing,' ..... 'So we’re rebuilding it as we go.'”

To Ms. Maffei and Mr. Stevens I say, thanks...and good luck restoring our Tumbledown Wheat Farms.