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While we might just think of rye as a necessary part of pumpernickel bread, it’s much more than that. I love cooking with rye, cooking with rye berries, and using rye as a cover crop to nourish the soil between growing seasons.
Rye is also one of the easiest cereals to grow successfully. This nutty, earthy grain is a delicious, soil-friendly grain that can grow well in almost any climate.
Looking for a good winter harvest? So let’s dive into the world of rye.
Contents
Introduction to rye
Whether it is called winter rye or cereal rye, it is the same grain. Secale cereal, or rye is a cool season annual.
But don’t confuse grain rye with ryegrass. These two plants are not closely related. Both are cold tolerant, but ryegrass (Lolium perenne) will not provide you with any rye grain.
Secale cereal, as you can tell from the botanical name, is a cereal. You sow it in the fall and it starts growing before the first hard frosts. Then, the rye will continue to grow slowly under the snow, throughout the winter.
In the spring, your young rye plants will sprout and be ready for harvest in late July or early August.
This grain grows a little slower than barley but faster than wheat. It thrives down to USDA hardiness zone 3. Rye can even be sown in the spring for a fall harvest in zones 1 and 2. Above zone 6, rye can grow if you plant it late fall or early winter.
Begin
Rye tolerates poor soils better than most cereals. While it prefers to grow in light loam or fine, sandy soil, rye will grow almost anywhere. This grain can grow well in clay soil, heavy, waterlogged soil, and very dry, hard-packed soil.
If you can prepare your soil by adding a small amount of well-composted manure, your rye will be delighted. If you can’t, your rye will be fine.
This ability to thrive in poor soil is one of the reasons rye is such a fantastic cover crop. You do not need to improve your soil before planting this soil amendment.
Rye seedlings
You will want to plant between 60 and 100 pounds of rye per acre of land. If you only sow a small amount of rye, buy a one-pound bag. A pound of rye should give adequate coverage to a 10×10 foot garden bed and light coverage to a 15×20 foot bed.
Broadcast the seed on the surface of the soil. When all the seeds are scattered, rake the ground so that your rye is covered with about half an inch of soil. If possible, pat the soil gently over the seeds to make sure the soil and seeds are touching.
Then, water the soil well. Rye doesn’t need constant watering, but this initial irrigation will give your seeds a healthy start.
Your seeds will germinate quickly. Rye can germinate at temperatures as low as 34°F. But rye will only produce strong vegetative growth at temperatures above 38°F.
When to sow
Seeding dates vary depending on the date of the first expected frost. As a general rule, you should plant your rye about 2-4 weeks after the first hard frost. It’s true, afterwards. It sounds crazy, but rye loves the cold.
Some people in colder climates prefer to sow rye in early fall, before the first frost. If you do, your rye will have a longer early growing season.
This is an excellent practice if you are using rye as a weed suppressant and as a cover crop. It is less ideal if you plant rye as a cereal. Plant cereal rye close to frost date to ensure most growth occurs in the spring and summer.
Sowing early in the fall is a great way to extend the grazing season if you have livestock. Young rye provides an excellent fall grazing option when many summer grasses have died. Fall grazing also has very little impact on spring and summer growth.
Pests and diseases
Once your rye is sown and watered, you can just sit back and wait until it’s time to harvest. Rye has few pests and even fewer diseases. Although rye is capable of succumbing to all the usual grain pests and diseases, it rarely does.
The most common concerns for rye growers are army worms. Since true infestations are incredibly rare, most growers will simply destroy the crop instead of treating an infestation. Occasionally, rust, junkand anthracnose will afflict rye crops, but these fungi are rare.
If you’re worried about them affecting your rye, plant one of the many resistant varieties on the market, such as the exciting ‘AGS 104’.
Rye is so disease resistant that some growers use a rye-based mulch to reduce disease on some less hardy plants. Rye mulches are great for reducing blight in tomato plants in particular.
rye harvest
Once it’s time to harvest, don’t feel intimidated. Although we are thinking of grain harvested by large agricultural machinery, you can easily harvest a small field by hand. Use a scythe or plant shears. It’s not as difficult as it seems.
After overwintering in the ground, rye begins to grow in earnest as temperatures warm. If you are growing it as a cover crop, cut your rye in the spring and either plow it into the ground or burn it before preparing the ground for the next crop.
If you grow rye as a cereal, leave it for a few more months. In times of drought, your rye will appreciate an occasional watering. Otherwise, leave it alone.
Depending on when you planted and how cold your winter is, your rye will be ready to harvest in early or mid-summer. When the rye stalks turn brown at the top, they are ready to harvest.
Don’t worry about having the right tools to harvest your grain. Simply cut the stems at the base with any tool that suits you. When all the stalks are cut, tie them into bundles, as you see with corn in the fall. Leave them to dry somewhere out of the reach of rain, birds and mice.
Your rye stalks should dry out for about two or three weeks before threshing.
Winter rye threshing
When threshing, lay the stems on a tarp or drop cloth. Then cover them with another leaf to keep the seeds from flying through the air as you thresh. Then simply beat the leaf-covered stems with a stick to release the rye berries.
Of course, you will have to separate the rye from the chaff after threshing. You can do this by straining them through a mesh screen or by poking through the leaf and picking up the seeds (or berries).
Use rye berries
Once the rye is threshed, you can store it in a bag or jar in your pantry. Family-sized flour mills are growing in popularity. They aren’t too big and can grind just the right amount of flour for your daily baking. If you have a small flour mill, simply grind your rye berries as needed.
If you don’t have a flour mill, try using a food processor or blender. Some people swear by them for simple grain grinding.
With plenty of rye berries on the shelf, you might be tempted to use them for something other than flour. Whole, sprouted, or soaked rye berries are a great addition to seed- and grain-rich bread.
You can also smash the berries in a pestle or on a coarser setting in your grain grinder. Cracked rye adds a nice nutty flavor to seed-based bread dippers.
You can cook whole rye berries in boiling water until tender. Drain, then serve as a base under sautéed garlic kale.
Or, mix cooked and drained rye berries with honey, poppy seeds and raisins for a delicious traditional Slavic dish. This “kutia” has been an essential part of Polish Christmas Eve meals for centuries.
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