Leith Wheat

Almost everyone has eaten bread, and we have done for thousands of years, but do we know how it is made? Or where it comes from? What is wheat? How many ingredients make a real loaf of bread and what goes into supermarket bread?  What on earth is sourdough?

This project aimed to address some of these questions and make some toast along the way.

We sowed, grew and harvested, local heritage wheat varieties in the heart of our community and shared opportunities to get involved at every stage of the process to learn more about this staple food and to explore questions about where our food comes from and whether or not it is possible to grow staple food items where we live in the heart of Leith.

The grain itself is interesting. As the folk at Scotland the Bread say themselves-

‘Grown on Balcaskie Estate in Fife, our traditional grains have been meticulously researched and chosen for their suitability for the Scottish growing conditions and climate, their biodiversity, their considerably higher levels of vitamins and minerals than conventional grains, and their exceptional flavour.‘

This is part of the Scotland the Bread Initiative ‘Soil to Slice’ and you can find out more about that project, and the rest of their work, here https://scotlandthebread.org/get-involved/soil-to-slice/

This is a project that we hope will grow into other sites across Leith. If you have space for a small wheat growing area, or would like to find out more, contact us growingleith@gmail.com

27/08/21 Harvest! We have been so pleased with how our wheat project has gone. We welcomes friends from Granton Community Gardeners, the Salisbury Centre Seed Circle and the Dough Club as well as our own committee members and volunteers to harvest our wheat this week. We have been so pleased to learn about grains and food systems through this project and our next step will be threshing, milling and making bread! Follow us on instagram @leithcommunitygrowers to find out more.