If you’ve got the mesquite, Desert Harvesters have the mill. And I’m talking a big, industrial-sized hammermill for making flour. It easily breaks up the tough mesquite pods to produce quality flour while saving a lot of time compared to hand grinding or blender methods.

You can bring your harvested mesquite pods and get them ground into flour for a small donation at the Ninth Annual Mesquite Milling and Fiesta at the Dunbar-Spring Community Garden on Sunday, November 20th. This fundraising event also features a mesquite bake sale with an array of baked goods.

From the Desert Harvesters website:

You can bring your harvested pods (up to 15 gallons) and get them ground them into flour for an additional donation. Again this year we will have three hammermills in operation to speed up the milling. The minimum milling fee is $5 for any amount under 3 gallons of whole pods (broken pods may be weighed instead). If you have 3+ gallons of whole pods to grind, you pay $2 per gallon. We want to encourage folks to bring at least 3 to 5 gallons of whole pods (5 gallons of whole pods will provide you with about 1 gallon of fine, edible flour in about 5 minutes of milling).

Desert Harvesters is a Tucson non-profit organization that promotes local food security and production by encouraging the planting of indigenous food-bearing shade trees, such as the Velvet mesquite, and educating the public on how to collect and process the harvest.

Event: Desert Harvesters Mesquite Milling and Bake Sale

Date: Sunday, November 20, 2011

Bake sale times: 9 am – noon
Milling times: 8 am – 2 pm
Where: Dunbar/Spring Organic Community Garden, Tucson, AZ

For more information contact hammermill@desertharvesters.org

Directions to Dunbar-Spring Community Garden:
The garden is located at the corner of 11th Avenue and University Blvd. The nearest major intersection is Speedway & Stone. From Speedway & Stone: Go south on Speedway 3 blocks, and turn right on University Blvd. Go 3 more blocks to 11th Ave. The garden is at the northwest corner of University and 11th.