Bulk Grain, part trois

(I thought of using spanish in the title instead of french. Decided french was confusing enough.)

(And no, I don't know spanish or french very well. I just know how to count in both languages. :)

Last time I talked about making sprouts to sprinkle in soups and layer on sandwiches among other things. Today, we're going to take the sprouting concept a little farther in one direction. Next time we'll take this to the other (you'll see what I mean when we get there).

Sprouts can be used to grow little seedling grasses which can be juiced and imbibed. Everyone has a different reaction to these, so if you truly can't stand it, I wouldn't force myself to like it. However, wheatgrass has more chlorophyll than wheat sprouts and we've gotten a really good reaction when we add wheatgrass (live or powdered) to our diet, especially in the winter. If you decide to grow wheatgrass (or any other green grass seedling) you'll need a wheatgrass juicer. They aren't that expensive and they juice all kinds of greens, so if growing wheatgrass or something similar is something you want to try, I highly recommend getting one. These greens, for the most part, aren't chewable. My husband and I have occasionally taken a small clump of grass and chewed it but only Mr. Vinca managed to enjoy it. Chewing the stuff made me gag.

Oddly enough, I have no problem with the juices, whereas I know several people who do. Go figure.

So, why do we put ourselves through this? Several reasons that would take up too much of this post and are too similar to the reasons for making sprouts. Most importantly, we feel better when we drink wheatgrass juice. We don't drink large amounts and we don't drink them every day, but we've found with greens you don't need a lot to benefit your life.

Because we've used wheatgrass quite a bit, that's what I'll talk about in this post. However, you can also grow barleygrass, sunflower greens, and buckwheat greens using this method (see both the wheatgrass section in Recipes for a Longer Life and The Wheatgrass Book both by Ann Wigmore). Also, water requirements change with the seasons as well as location. Feel free to change around the method to suit your area.

Growing Wheatgrass

1. Soak your wheat like you do for sprouts. We use 2 cups for a 10"x21" flat.
2. Drain the sprouts well.
3. Prepare your container. Traci Sellers uses small paper bowls with no soil just holes punched in the bottom, and our local health food store sells hydroponically grown wheatgrass, but I've never been able to grow wheatgrass without soil. If you use soil (like me), any container will work as long as it allows drainage without letting a whole lot fall through. You won't need much soil in it... about 1 to 2". Some also add azomite or peat moss.*
4. Sprinkle your soaked sprouts on top of the soil. Do not press them in or cover them with soil.
5. Gently, gently water the sprouts, trying to make sure you don't bury them.
6. You can either cover your sprouts at this point with another container turned upside down, or you can do like we do. We get anywhere from 3 to 8 layers of newspaper wet and lay it down on top of the sprouts (3 if it's humid, 8 if it's dry or winter).
7. Twice a day check on them to make sure they have enough water or that the newspaper hasn't dried out. If it has, wet it down with some water.
8. After a couple of days, your sprouts should have grown 1" blades of grass. If they have, uncover the sprouts so they can start getting some sun.
   
9. Water every day, make sure it gets sun or a good equivalent, and watch it grow.
10. When the grass gets to about 6", it's ready to harvest.
11. Harvesting: cut with a sharp knife close to the roots. Put in juicer cut-side up. Start with 1 oz. for adults, 1 tsp. for children. Mix with half n' half with apple juice or water if the taste is too strong. 4 oz. is the limit for most adults and personally I feel lucky if the kids will take 1 tsp. in their juice.

* Both are optional, though we've found in our personal experience that without azomite we can't get a decent crop from our wheat we buy at the LDS cannery. It just doesn't grow very well.

Wheatgrass is a little more complex than sprouts but not much more. It's also a good introduction into growing seedlings and the complexities of gardening.

If you want a kit, they sell them on the Internet. We started out using supplies from Wheatgrasskits.com. They have a lot of information as well as supplies, juicers and kits for other kinds of indoor gardening.

Oh, and as a side note, if you end up with wheat that hasn't been threshed/winnowed properly and you don't feel like getting it consumable for people or using it for wheatgrass for yourself, wheat makes a very good cover crop.

We don't have any livestock but we've heard wheatgrass makes an excellent food for cows. The milk they give when they eat wheatgrass has a very high vitamin and mineral content. According to Price's book Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, one village he visited in the Alps considered the butter made from such milk sacred: something to be used all through the winter months when the cows don't produce as well. He tested it and it did indeed have a much better nutritional content than the butters sold commercially. So, FYI.

One final word about spent wheatgrass. Some people can manage to get a second growth out of it. If you cut it before the jointing stage, it will grow back just like your lawn after mowing. However, we usually either just throw it out or compost it. Of the two, I highly recommend composting. Not only does it reduce landfill space, it takes all that lovely green growth and turns it into something you can use on future flats... or in your garden, whether you use containers or the backyard. I'll try to do a post on composting soon since we're gearing up for our garden here in Texas.

Next in this series: low-heating grains, the why and the how.