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Wheatgrass At Home: What You Need To Know To Get Started

By Collin Harris

Republish: EasyPublish™ Published: 14Apr2012 Word count: 2125 Viewed: 15 time(s) Get Free Content For Your Site

If you are aiming for optimum health, cleansing, or a disease prevention program, drinking wheatgrass can be a valuable tool to aid in this process. The question is where are you going to get it? If you don't want to rely on someone else to grow it for you and you don't want to settle for frozen or dehydrated juice, you will need to consider growing it for yourself. The great news is that growing wheatgrass at home is not a monumental task, in fact, it's very easy.

Make it Easy

The art of simplicity makes doing the most complex tasks easy. Fortunately, growing wheatgrass at home is a straightforward process, but it will be broken down into steps that facilitate easier understanding and convenience.

The Big Picture And A Juicer

First, what exactly is your mission in juicing? It may seem like common sense, but our job is to separate the nutrient rich water that is stored away in the fiber-cellulose of the grass. Here is where your natural health arsenal comes into play. You need a juicer. Make sure your juicer is specifically designed to deal with wheatgrass and greens. Keep in mind, typical centrifugal juicers have a difficult time dealing with wheatgrass.

Get the Right Seed

Seed is a vital part of growing wheatgrass. So, with that in mind, search for seed that is organic. You want to get started on the right foot, and seed is the right foot. A standard, rectangular eleven by twenty one inch tray will need close to one and half to one and three quarters of a cup of seed.

Time For Trays

After seeds, you need something to grow the seeds in. Standard practice is to grow in 11 x 21 inch black plastic trays. One tray will hold your soil medium and the seeds, but you also need one to act as a cover for the seedlings in the first week of growing. So for every tray of seed you plan on growing you need to have a total of two trays.

The Soil

The easiest way to start your wheatgrass at home is by purchasing an organic potting soil with no chemicals. The combination of ingredients will probably consist of peat moss, soil, and a particle (perlite or vermiculite) that allows the roots of the plant to breathe. To feed the seedlings, you will need to get a fertilizer such as azomite.

Mix the soil and some azomite together and fill your tray not quite to the point of being level with the tray top. Many people say to fill the tray with roughly 2" of soil, but with more soil the seedlings can spread their roots more and it makes cutting the grass easier

Soak And Spread

Soak your seed overnight in a glass container and make sure you cover it with cheesecloth or some breathable fabric. After it has soaked for 9-12 hours, use cheesecloth or a specially made sprouting bag, to sprout the wheat grass. It will take 24-48 hours; during this time make sure you keep the grass moist. After sprouting, spread out the seed evenly over the soil. Do not cover the seed with soil, but with the extra tray you purchased.

Maintenance

Your vital role in the period after setting the seed is to simply monitor the growing wheatgrass. The thing you have to watch closely for is to make sure the grass does not dry out. Potting soil doesn't hold moisture very well, so making sure your seedlings get ample water is important. But not too much, either! Use a spray bottle and spritz enough for soil moistness. A few days following seed set, when the grass has grown high enough to touch the tray covering them, you can remove it.

Harvest Time

After roughly ten to fourteen days, you should be ready to harvest. It should be around 10" in height. Because the grass starts losing nutrients after it has been cut, make sure you juice ASAP.

Not only is the growing process rewarding, but you are blessed with a potent green drink that makes growing wheat grass at home well worth it.

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