What you need to know about growing millet is contained in the Mother Earth News PDF.

Gene Logsdon shows in Small-Scale Grain Raising that anyone who has access to a large garden or small farm can grow healthy whole grains or beans alongside their fruits and vegetables.There is information about the four types of millet and how they can be grown on a small-scale in this excerpt.

The United States grows millet for hay and pasture.Proso millet is grown for food.It is used for many things.It is a better source of vitamins than wheat, oats, rice, and other common grains.You can combine it with millet for a good combination in your diet.While most grains form acids in your stomach, millet has a high alkaline mineral content that makes it easier to digest.The basic food in northern China is millet.The Hunzas are well known for their health and longevity.

The word millet leads to a lot of confusion, as it is used to refer to plants in four different families.In the United States, sellers of field seed talk about Japanese, German, Hungarian, African, common, proso, pearl, browntop, and variations.The terms don't necessarily refer to the same plant in different parts of the country.I will attempt to identify all the millets with the help of Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening, Horticulture, and Landscape Design, 4th ed., supported by innumerable phone calls to seedsmen throughout the United States.I will not claim infallibility for my categorization.One man has a different way of saying something.

There are three different families of millets and a fourth kind which is not millet at all.First, dispatch with this fourth one.If you live in Texas or other surrounding states, you can grow African millet, a tall form of kafir corn with a proper name of Sorghum unlgare var.Caffrorum.It is grown for hay and pasture.In Texas, African millet might be referred to as a mock- orange cane.

The only millet grown in the United States is Proso millet.The open heads of the plant look like small broomcorn heads.The foxtail and cattail-shaped heads of other millets are different.No millet is sold under the name "broomcorn millet" anymore, but interest in proso is increasing as a food grain for the driest parts of the country.In India, China, Japan, Manchuria, and Russia, this family of millets is used for grain and flour.The seed coating on Proso is so hard that it is usually used for humans as well as livestock.Chickens are able to handle it all.The seeds are about the size of a pepper and can be red, yellow, or white.The newer varieties are white.

Foxtail millets, Setaria italica, are grown for emergency hay when the weather is always dry.They make better forage than proso because they are not hairy-stemmed.Foxtail millet is called barnyard millet in this part of the country because it volunteers in the summer and grows better than other grasses.The livestock don't like it when it heads out.

The browntop and Japanese varieties are not included with the foxtail millets.That is where scientific classification and names get confusing.The Japanese millet grows in the north while the browntop grows south.Both can grow to a height of 5 feet and will grow more than any other millet.The millets are so dry that they can be used for haymaking.In the South, browntop is used to cover and feed quail and other game birds, but a Georgia farmer said it was also good hay for dairy cows.

Pennisetum glaucum, also known as P. americanum, is the third group of millets.Pearl millet is often called cattail millet in the Southeast because it looks more like a reed head than a small foxtail grass.Pearl millet is grown in the South.It's free from the hull, which might make it more desirable for the garden farmer to process millet for table use.It's not as desirable for flour or grain.

If broadcast, millet can be planted at a rate of about 35 pounds per acre for all kinds of millet.I was told that it will come up from 4 inches to 5 inches down.It's better to have 1 inch to 3 inches of planting depth.Late in the season, millet can be planted.After another crop fails, it is often grown as an emergency crop.

It has other advantages, but millet won't compete, pound for pound, as hay or pasture.You can use it thirty days after you plant it.It's not possible for a legume to make that claim.It has good insect resistance and is relatively free of disease, which makes it a good crop for growers who don't want to use commercial pesticides.It can produce several tons of hay per acre in three months.It is a good emergency for when things go wrong.The same would be true of the grain.Chickens will do well if they toss the stalks and let them peck out the seeds.There are ongoing programs at the land-grant colleges on millet improvement in the drier parts of the Great Plains.If we ever run out of irrigation water, millet could become a very valuable food source, as it is in other dry regions of the world, according to one of them.

Proso millet has a bland taste with just a slightly nutty flavor, which is why it is so versatile.They say that it can be used alone or in combination with other grains in casseroles, breads, stew, soufflés or eaten plain with butter, gravy, or a vegetable sauce.Brown it first in a skillet with a small amount of oil, then use it as you would any other grain.The nutty flavor is enhanced by Browning.

Ray Wolf was an Organic Living editor at Rodale Press.Adding millet, sesame seed meal, and five parts water to a baking casserole or a double boiler and cooking it for 45 minutes will serve a dual purpose.This can be eaten as a snack, or allowed to cool and congeal, at which point it can either be sliced or prepared as patties.It can be reheated and served with cheese.

Would you like to make your own bread from millet?You can learn how to make homemade millet bread.

Gene Logsdon's Small-Scale Grain Raising, Second Edition is the basis for this excerpt.

When to plant millet in South Carolina?

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