Quinoa is one of the valuable ancient grains. It's related to the humble pigweed and looks very much like it. I purchased my seeds from West Coast Seeds and started the plants in the potting shed. Once the plants were tall enough, they were transplanted to one of the beds which, of course, had been augmented with compost and homemade fertilizer. They grew quickly and were kept watered with a drip hose. To my surprise they topped out at over 6' tall. I now know that they don't need as much water as I gave them. When they get too much water they grow very tall and start to tip over. Indeed, that happened to mine!
They were very attractive plants - sorry no pictures - with frothy red, yellow and orange seed heads. I watched them carefully as August came to a close and handled the seed heads frequently to see when the seeds were going to start falling.
When I noticed seeds in my hands, I started cutting the more advanced plants and lay the tops out on shallow trays in the potting shed. When all were totally dry, I stripped the dried flowers and seeds into the trays and put the bare stems in the compost.
The attempt at winnowing wasn't much of a success. There was a light wind and I poured the mass back and forth, managing to lose some of the chaff - and some of the seeds. Finally gave up and poured the whole harvest into a huge bowl of water, drawing off the floating chaff as the seeds fell to the bottom. Okay, mission accomplished. Now on to the processing!
Quinoa seeds are covered with saponin, a soapy coating which means that birds don't eat them. It's bitter and unpleasant tasting. This has to be removed. I'd read that you can put the quinoa into pillow cases and give them lots of rinses in the washer, but I don't have that much, so I spun them in my food processor with a dull, plastic blade. Many, many, many times! And rinsed between processing. It's a very messy procedure indeed! When seeds chewed finally didn't taste bitter, I dumped the seeds into a baking tray, spread them out and they now sit in the potting shed to dry. I could dry them in my dehydrator, but I'm afraid that might be too warm. I only hope that after all the work I've put in they don't go mouldy on me!
Will I grow quinoa again? Probably not. They take up a full bed that could be put to use growing something else. And all the work involved for about a litre of seeds doesn't seem to be all that worthwhile. However, if I change my mind, I'm sure there'll be millions of little quinoa plants sprouting up in the garden to choose from!
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