Ebony's Pearls

Growing rice at home is easy if you're not planning on growing enough to sell, just for personal use.

Get a handful of raw, unprocessed rice - from a health food store or farmer's market or buy the rice seed. Soak the rice seeds in water for 36 hours. Then drain the seeds and let them dry for 24 hours. Spread 5″ - 6″ of gardening soil into the bottom of a child's wading pool - a 3' one that doesn't have drainage holes punched in it and is in a sunny location. Once you fill it with soi and water, it will be too heavy to move. It should get at least 7 - 8 hours of sunlight.

Mix and equal amount of compost lightly into the soil. Cover the soil mixture with 4″ - 5″ of water. Sprinkle your seeds evenly over the water, where they will sink and begin to grow.

Keep the water level at about 4" - 5" the whole time the rice is growing.

Three to four months after the rice is planted, it should be ready to harvest. You'll know it's ready when the grain heads bend over and start to turn brown. When this happens, drain the water from the pool (siphon it or punch drainage holes and use it for different vegetables next season - I recommend siphoning if you plan to grow rice again). Let the rice plants dry for a week or two. The hotter it is, the quicker the rice will dry. The rice should turn completely brown.

Now, all you have to do is husk the rice. Here is a method for husking the rice. And here is another way. There are rumors that the nunchaku were originally used to de-husk rice, and that's possible, but flailing rice isn't as easy as that sounds. The oversized, foot-powered mortar and pestle arrangement is easier and less labor intensive to de-husk the rice. De-husking rice isn't that different from de-husking wheat. You can use this wheat threshing process for rice as well.

The first de-husking leaves you with brown rice.

You can further mill the rice to remove the bran, leaving you with white rice. The bran can be used in other dishes and as bedding for hatching baby chicks.

And there, you've grown your own rice.

Edited to add: This should provide enough rice for one person for 6 months to a year - depending on the type of rice you grow and how much you eat.