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Supposedly, the gangly, profuse plants that are quinoa were overly stimulated by the extra nitrogen from the crimson clover that was tilled under. I was told by a seed grower on seeing photos of the crop that they were a great stand. So my concerns about those that lodged (fell over) need to be balanced by having a bumper crop.

The ultimate issue was threshing. I had a washtub full of seeds and chaff after stripping the stems. These require a lot of threshing to separate the quinoa seeds from the hulls that surround them.

I thrashed about two gallons of the harvest and the attempted to winnow the chaff and remaining stems. The days I chose had so little wind that I quit. And even the smallest stems fell along with the seeds rather than the chaff. We'll see how useful the results are when we attempt to cook them. Hopefully, the non-edible parts will wash away when the prepare the seeds.

Results of cooking will determine whether I spend time threshing any portion of the remains in the washtub.

Whether I attempt to grow quinoa gain will depend on whether I have an acceptable amount that can be cooked. The jury is still out on this.

After watching a washtub full of unthreshed quinoa sit through the winter and finding that the quinoa I though I threshed wasn't really thoroughly clean, I made a big contribution to my compost bin. The quinoa seeds composted quickly and added a lot to the quality of the compost. So, yes, I can grow quinoa. But the rest of the process is beyond me. Another lesson learned.