t h e m a y f i l e s is foremost a family blog, chronicling everyday life. Life including natural, healthy eating (with recipes thrown in at random), home educating (with ideas popping up sporadically), an attempt to homestead on .2 acres (with very meager yields), raising 3 of 4 children with a rare genetic disorder, and lots of highly personal family triumphs and failures. You may also find an eclectic array of musings on politics, exercise, sewing, emergency preparedness, backyard chickens, and religion. This blog isn't a campaign to glorify anyone or anything. Just simply a record.

9.22.2009

Wheatgrass attempt by the Black Thumbed Gardener

If you will recall from my Opening 5 Cans of Worms post a while back, I learned several things I wanted to research and possibly begin integrating into my family's diet and lifestyle. One that I haven't updated about yet is wheatgrass. This one intimidated me a bit because I am so horrible at growing things. But I am here to announce it has been a success! Although my little kitchen is overrun by grass. I need to work out some shelves somehow.

Day 1...planted (the wheat had soaked over night)
Day 2...Sprouting
Day 6...Reaching for the sun and photosynthesizing like mad

Day 14...3 days of harvesting into our first tray. Trays 2 and 3 are ready to go.
Prepping for my first ever shot of straight wheatgrass...it smelled horrible and I am really brave!
It tasted even worse than it smelled! I was anticipating a green, grassy taste. Nope. (I look extra horrible because I just got back from a ride)It is sickeningly sweet. Ick! Since the first day we have been combining it in a smoothie. The kids don't notice it at all. I like mine with lemon and cayenne. Brent and the kids with lots of oranges and other fruit.
Brent felt about the same as I did about the taste.

The redeeming quality is wheatgrass doesn't overpower a smoothie so start growing. Even if your garden is a flop...like mine is...if I can grow wheatgrass you can too!

Wheat is cheap and plentiful. It stores forever. Wheatgrass is actually a cure for radiation sickness and many people swear it has cured their cancer. I won't make any claims...yet...but if you are like me and have oodles of wheat on hand, one more way to use it never hurts. After all, aren't we told that grains are the "staff of life" where does it say they must be ground up and cooked?

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I love the look on your faces. The first time I had wheatgrass I got it from Whole Foods and it was moldy, though we didn't know it then. Talk about being sick. I do grow my own now. Great job!

Za said...

Is it any special kind of wheat,organic or anything? Will my regular blender work or it needs to be a juicer? I've been having green drink in the morning and I am going to try it. Love those faces :)

Rebecca said...

I bought a kit to get started and the wheat was organic. But it is my understanding that any old wheat will work. I also was told you can sprout kamut and spelt. I am pretty certain you need a juicer for the wheatgrass. Some of the high powered juicers like vitamix and blendtec claim you can use them, but from my reading you dont get the same benefits as juicing. But I am certainly not an expert. Still learning everyday.

Unknown said...

I bought my first kit from Wheatgrasskits.com and I also bought a manual wheat grass juicer, which worked great. I went to their website but couldn't find the one I bought a couple years back. It looks like they have better ones now.
Nothing like the smell of fresh cut lawn in your kitchen. hehe

Rebecca said...

I have the omega 8003. It is an electric masticating juicer. It keeps the temperature really low. I bought it a couple months ago and have been happy with it. I have heard great things about the manual, I just thought juicing 4 oz a day would get overwhelming for me by hand! Jacque do you reorder your soil from wheatgrasskits.com?

Michele said...

Ick! Yeah, even i tried wheat grass and I could have told you it was gross. Don't think I will ever have it again! :D

Unknown said...

I have reordered my soil from them. I have been lazy at trying to make or look around for it. I have used my compost soil before. It was ok, but sometimes I forget to turn over my compost. So I will grow seeds from my compost too. A fun family game is to see what seeds are growing with the wheat grass. hehe. I haven't grown wheat grass this year because I broke my arm earlier this year (crashing on my road bike, ick) and I had to have it pinned back together which has caused me a lot more pain. So I decided to cut back on a couple of extra stuff, but reading this makes me want to grow it again. Thanks for the inspiration!