Made in Scotland
A Garden of Grains By Wendy Barrie
Scottish Thistle Award Regional Ambassador (2018/19) for Central, Tayside & Fife Director of Scottish Food Guide What do Shetland, Grimsay, North Uist, Fair Isle, Luing and Dalarna have in common with Ardross Farm? They are the origins of the grains planted by a Swedish farmer in a Scottish walled garden near Elie. Bosse Dahlgren has farmed regeneratively all his working life in Sweden until he settled in Fife in 2013 at which point he had to make do with our diminutive kitchen garden but was undeterred. Having always run a mixed farm with heritage breeds and grains he wanted to see which interesting grains could work in the Scottish
Bosse scything ar Ardross
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climate – after all it seemed pretty Nordic – so he set about growing a small patch of an old variety of spring wheat from his mother’s homeland of Dalarna, in the heartland of Sweden. His first batch of Dalarna spring wheat worked well in its new home, the 1½ square metre bed yielding sufficient grain for two delicious loaves and seed saving for the following year. A chance conversation with the Pollocks at Ardross brought about the loan of a table-top mill to make flour. Meanwhile over in the Hebrides there was an interest
in producing local milk and an invitation extended for Bosse to visit and offer advice whereupon he met farmers still growing old grains - but for feed not focaccia - that sparked his interest. He returned to the mainland with a wee bag of seeds. The following year we visited Mary Braithwaite on Luing who
Wendy binding stooks at Ardross
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had achieved a gold award in the Scottish Bread Championship at the Royal Highland Show. She too is interested in heritage grains and had been given a mixed bag from a farmer, straight from the land, that she kindly donated to Bosse. Now there was no stopping him from his mission! Day after day he sat sorting out grains – a task akin to a
