How to Grow Wheat Grass

Wheat grass is a kind of grass. The above-ground parts, roots, and rhizome are used to make medicine. Wheatgrass is primarily used as a concentrated source of nutrients. It contains vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E, iron, calcium, magnesium, and amino acids.

Wheat grass is used to treat many conditions, but so far there isn’t enough scientific evidence to support effectiveness for any of these uses.

Wheat grass is used for increasing production of hemoglobin, the chemical in red blood cells that carries oxygen; improving blood sugar disorders, such as diabetes; preventing tooth decay; improving wound healing; and preventing bacterial infections.

It is also used for removing deposits of drugs, heavy metals, and cancer-causing agents from the body; and for removing toxins from the liver and blood.

Some people use wheatgrass for preventing gray hair, reducing high blood pressure, improving digestion, and lowering cholesterol by blocking its absorption.

Wheatgrass is also used to treat various disorders of the urinary tract, including infection of the bladder, urethra, and prostate; benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH);kidney stones; and in "irrigation therapy," the use of a mild diuretic along with lots of fluids to increase urine flow.

Other uses include treatment of respiratory tract complaints, including the common cold, cough, bronchitis, fever, and sore throat; tendency toward infection; gout; liver disorders; ulcerative colitis; joint pain; and chronic skin problems.

Wheatgrass is used for cancer and arthritis in alternative treatment programs. Wheatgrass contains a lot of chlorophyll, the chemical in plants that makes them green and also allows them to make energy from sunlight through photosynthesis. Some people think chlorophyll might fight cancer and arthritis.

How to Grow Wheat Grass

Seed.  We obtain our wheat seed from Whole Foods in their seed section.  They call it Winter Wheat seed.  There are Internet sites that have it.  Don't buy too much at a time.  5 lbs will go a long way. Keep it cool as it can cake up and get moldy.  Every so often aerate it by just shaking the container.  I keep it in the kitchen where it is cool.

You have different options in how to grow wheat grass.  You can grow it in a bowel as shown at the top of the page.   You can grow it in a greenhouse or outside in the garden, weather permitting.

We use two boxes to control the amount that is grown although we do store some in the freezer to have if we run out of grass and are waiting for enough to cut. We use pee stone to fill the boxes up to a level   When constructing these  plastic boxes we just took a saber saw and cut the insides of the covers out  and fastened the chicken wire with a bead of mastic and some self tapping screws.  It is important to drill half inch holes in the bottoms of the plastic boxes for drainage.  About 8 holes is just about right in the bottom of each box. You will need about three bags of the river bed pee stone. (Home Depot has it in the Garden section)  You need enough to bring the trays up to a proper height which is about 1 1/2" below the screen.  This depth should be enough to keep the bird beaks at bay, but you may have to lower the pee stone a little to lower the tray. After you get the heights right, take the balance and make a bed under the boxes on the ground for good drainage.   Between the drain holes and stone you should not have any wet feet problems.

To the left you will see a little setting where we have dumped the old tray scalp out on the ground for recycling.  The shovel chops up the sod and the empty plastic tray gets ready to accept a fresh bed of soil.  We usually leave a little room in the top of the  tray for a topping of Miracle Gro potting soil to top off the recycled material.  A clump of sod in the mix won't hurt a thing.

To the left is a bed of wheat grass seed and a dry coffee cup that was filled just about half way up in the kitchen where we store the seed.  The cup works nice when spreading the seed on to the soil.

The picture to the left is where the tray is placed in the plastic box on top of the pee stone.  You will notice a paper towel mulch over the seed that enhances germination and a plastic water can and we use a cup full of starter solution on the top of the container in about a full water can of water.  The paper mulch helps to keep the seed from moving around by the way.

The  last photo is the finished product with the cover put on and ready to start the growing process.

It takes a few days for the seed to germinate and as soon as it gets up about a 1/2 inch or so I remove the paper mulch but put the cover back on.  The birds and critters would still feast on the seed.

The grass will proceed to grow through the chicken wire.  After it gets up about 6 to 8 inches we start to cut a little handful and put it in our high speed blender that does grind up the grass blades into oblivion.  For those who just have a juicer for wheat grass you will have to experiment on what best works for you.