This is part 2 of the Chufa Harvest and Post-Harvest experience.
Here’s Part 1 when the Harvest began!
The Chufa Nuts sat for a good week in a lidless bin in the barn.
That was the revolutionary new twist that I added to the Chufa harvest workflow.
I used to bring the harvest bins straight to the wash station from the field. These were heavy bins filled with dirty root clumps and Chufa nuts.
So much dirt in those bins.
All that dirt would clog up whatever screens I had on hand.
I would make do by filling the bins with water and decanting into another bin. The Chufa didn’t really float but it was lighter than all the soil. And if I controlled the decantation right I could get the Chufa to spill into the second bin without much of the dirt.
With a couple decanting sequences, I could separate everything into one bin of mostly cleaned Chufa and a few bins of heavy mud.
Those heavy mud bins were HEAVY. They were not fun to move around, and a pain to get back to the field so as not to lose precious topsoil.
But this year, I let the bins sit for a week before cleaning the tubers.
And over that week, the dirt in the bins dried out quite a bit.
It dried out enough that it would run smoothly through a 1/4 inch by 1/4 inch screen.
Leaving tubers on the screens with some sticks and stones and plant bits.
This 1 week delay between harvest and cleaning made everything easier to handle. And quicker too!
And easier and quicker = a happier farmer.
This was part 2 of the Chufa Harvest and Post-Harvest experience.