Grow your own wheatgrass

Step 7 Step 7: Juicing

Wheatgrass is fibrous and indigestible by humans, so it must be juiced in order to be consumed.

Harvest, juice and consume immediately for best nutritional benefit.

Proponents of wheatgrass recommend one ounce glass of straight wheatgrass daily, first thing in the morning.

preparing juice

1. low budget method -chew blades of grass and spit out fibre

2. If you have a regular centrifugal juicer, use that (at a low speed); however, some of the live enzymes in the wheatgrass will be destroyed (denatured by the heat) hence losing nutritional value.

3. Get a wheatgrass (masticating) juicer they can be either manual with a hand crank or electric. These do not hurt those living enzymes.

The yield varies with the type of juicer you use. You may need to use a larger growth tray or have more trays growing at the same time to ensure an adequate supply of wheatgrass juice for your needs.

As a warning, if you haven't tried wheatgrass before, it is sickly sweet and tastes like grass, so I recommend blending with other fruits or vegetables

My recipes

wheatgrass juice
lemon juice (juice a few slices of lemon with the wheatgrass)
add water to fill an 8oz glass
-the tartness of the lemon helps counteract the sweetness of the wheatgrass

wheatgrass juice
carrot juice
This provides you with your greens and your beta-carotene all in one drink

Here are a few more:

http://www.wheatgrassforlife.com/recipes.htm

ps: this is my first instructable let me know how I can improve

Comments

[SeaLion]

I like the low budget option! :)

[SIRJAMES09]

from the time you first plant it, Wheat grass takes 7 - 10 days to sprout, and about 2 - 4 weeks till you can get a first cutting from it.

Eventually I transplanted mine into a bigger pot(18 inch diameter) & am waiting for it to turn to seed at which time I will harvest it & start another planting. I will plant directly into a medium sized pot tho this next time.

[Retirement1]

Great instructible - Thanks so much! Would it still keep it's nutritional value if frozen?  Just had a thought that freezing it in ice cube trays would make a handy way to store it then plunking a couple of cubes in a blender to mix with a smoothie.

[ChrysN]

That sounds like a great idea!  It may lose some of it's nutritional value, but I'm sure it would still be good for you.

[dearcole]

do you know if you can reuse wheatgrass seeds? or do you have to start with new seeds and new soil everytime after you harvest? just seems wasteful is all.

[linuxnewbie]

Yes, you can reuse them-up to a point. After your first harvest, you can keep growing the wheatgrass, but remember, each harvest will be a little small and lack some quality and flavor. That's because the seeds have only so much energy and nutrition. You could fertilize, but then you're dealing with chemical laden wheatgrass-not much point. Still, getting an extra harvest or two before dumping the flat on the compost pile is better for the environment than just pitching the flat after one use. By the way, this technique for growing wheatgrass also works great for baby lettuce. Simply use organic lettuce seeds instead of wheatgrass. And Sooo much cheaper than organic baby lettuce mix at the supermarket. Or grow one flat of each and then juice together - yummy

[BlondGuy101]

Does fertilser always mean synthetic chemicals? What plants really need is nitrogen and that must be in a form that they can utililise if they are not nitrogenous (I dunno if wheatgrass is nitrogenous though). Nitrogen from 'organic' fertilisers, is acquired most commonly from ones that are based on rotted/fermented manure (apparently a horse's is best but that's not to say that you could not give your own a try - they will contain much the same chemicals if you are vegetarian, just in different ways). Urine also contains a good quantity of nitrogenous wastes (the yellow colour is urea, a nitrogenous chemical your body produces) and it is sterile unless yo have some horrible urinary tract infection, which you probably won't have if you are healthy. If you could find some way to neutralise the acid content (though it is weak) then it would be prime fertiliser (patches of grass that dogs have tinkled on is always greener eventually, even though it gets damaged and is yellow at first). BTW I have just though that you could also do some kind of crop rotation with leguminous plants. That would infuse the soil with nitrites that other plants need too. In fact you could go so far as to grow some bean plants or whatever and then mulch the whole thing roots and all into a liquid fertiliser. Sorry for the long post I can suffer from logorrhea sometimes.

[london_kitty5]

Where do you get your baby lettuce seeds? Now I'm off to search for a baby lettuce growing instructables...

[linuxnewbie]

I've had good results on ebay. Most garden centers have seeds that are coated with pesticides, and fungicides (so they don't rot when you put them in wet soil) so you might wanna pass on them. When I ran a community garden, I was able to get them thru the gardening co-op; try them as well.

[static]

How long you can grow it and continue to get quality cuttings has to depend a lot on the quality of the potting mix at the start. Everything is a chemical compound, and all are not bad.. A nutritious "tea" could be safely applied to the soil as needed. For the long term it would make sense to plant in roomy container, get multiple harvests of grass before letting to grow to maturity, to harvest the berries. I think that's what they call sustainability. ;) A dirty word for corporations, that may be why I like the idea so much ;)

[peitsche]

Great post. Thank you for all the wonderful advice:)

[LancePenney]

I wouldn't worry about the heat from the juicer destroying the enzymes. Enzymes are proteins that will immediately be broken down by peptidases in your stomach anyways.

[dearcole]

also i wonder if there is any reusable alternative to the soil, wouldn't be as wasteful if all you replace is seeds. just a thought.

[ChrysN]

I guess you can try growing it on cheesecloth, muslin, jute or something like that and once it is harvested try to remove the leftover grass and roots to use the material again, though it might be difficult, it gets quite rootbound by the time you harvest it. Perhaps a hydroponic medium like clay pebbles might work too, and would be easier to clean and reuse. I think if you can compost it after you harvest the grass and use finished compost as the growth medium its not as wasteful. In regards to your question about reusing the seeds, I think in theory, after the first harvest you can let it grow back and let it mature and go to seed then harvest the seeds. Though you would probably need to plant it in deeper soil or outside maybe though I've never tried this.

[DWRead]

It doesn't grow well in hydroponic pebbles--I tried it. Also hard to clean the roots off of the pebbles.