The Craftiest Workshop

Last year my sister in-law gave my mom a started pot of wheat grass on Palm Sunday. Mom had a lovely bed of bright green grass a week later. I decided to try to plant some of my wheat kernels last year to see if I could grow some wheat grass. In my head it would be like planting flower seeds giving each kernel space to grow. I didn’t water enough and the whole thing was a bust. This year I did a little research and realized that last year I couldn’t have been farther off the mark.

The first very important step is soaking the wheat kernels. You might remember three years ago I did a post about removing the wheat off the neighbour’s field after he left some during harvest. I stood for a LONG time on a windy day trying to shake the wheat husks in a pie plate to remove the chaff. I still had about two cups of those wheat kernels in my pantry.

I used two 500 ml glass wide mouth jars and put 1/4 cup of kernels in each jar. I wanted to see how much space 1/4 cup of kernels could cover. To the kernels I added water until they were just covered. I closed the jars and left them for 24hrs. I could have put the kernels on soil at this point but I decided to instead dump them in a fine mesh strainer and give them a rinse putting the wet kernels back into the jars covered for another day.

Here are the kernels after about 48hrs.
Many little sprouts on the kernels.

Since we are cutting back on sweets and chocolate is so expensive anyhow, I decided to use this ceramic easter basket to put the wheat grass into. Once it grows it will be like the bunny is peeking out of the grass and flowers coming up amongst it. I wet some potting soil and filled it almost to the top.

The next step was to thickly place the wheat kernels over the soil pressing them gently to make contact with the soil.

I added a bit more water, as the kernels need to stay moist, then covered the basket with plastic wrap. The plastic should stay on until grass is sprouting up and needs more space.

I used the full 1/4 cup’s worth on this basket but had another 1/4 cup of sprouted wheat to put in other containers. I decided to use a small flower pot, a leaf shaped dish and a pottery cauldron my niece had made.

Now all I have to do is check for moisture every day. I will expect a bit of white fuzzy mold to grow before removing the cover but once removed that will go away. From what I read about wheat grass, it can be harvested by cutting to 1” starting day nine. It will grow back two more times before becoming scraggly and needing to be composted.

While you can’t eat wheat grass straight up, you can apparently juice it and add it to smoothies. I don’t think I am too interested in that. I should also mention that cats apparently love wheat grass and it is beneficial for their digestion and hairballs.

I was going to wait a week to post the result but I thought that this gives anyone reading this the week to find some wheat to plant if you are interested in trying this. I am not sure if grocery stores carry the kernels but I know Bulk Barn does. I think they are referred to as wheat berries.

I just wanted a bit of spring indoors and something to represent the new life that Easter brings. We are expecting another 20cm of snow over the next few days and there is still 3-4ft of snow everywhere in our yard. Actual spring is a ways off for us.