wheat grass! I’ve never done this before and I’ve never known anybody to grow it. I didn’t follow any of the 1,4,9,16 spacing rules for planting either. I just sprinkled it over the square, covered it my homemade compost and watered it in. I think you can see the label-it must grow pretty quick because it’s supposed to be 4″ tall in a week. I’m growing this for two reasons. First, we’ve got a couple of people in our family who juice the stuff. Not me-I wouldn’t want anything to do with it. Second, when it’s done I will turn it over and will effectively compost this square with a cover crop. This will add a significant amount of nitrogen. I’m telling you, this soil is just loaded with all kinds of good stuff. No wonder why everything grows so well and so easily! If it does grow that fast I suspect I’ll be growing a square every other week. Today the weather was sunny, a little cool with a light breeze. I’ve been experimenting with a new technique that I will be sharing with those attending my workshops. It makes your square foot garden more productive in terms of time and yield. I think I can say it works because I’ve duplicated it three times now. Things in your SFG should be coming along pretty well if you’re in zone 6. You’ll have about 3 more weeks before you can begin to really load up your gardens with all the fun summer things-like squash, zucchini, pole beans and tomatoes. Do you know how to grow zucchini in 1 square foot? If you’re not then it’s taking up 9 spaces. Come to one of my workshops….I will show you how to only use 1 square for zucchini and all the other ninja secrets, and there’s quit a few of them..and by the way-that thing below the post asking for your email if you like this blog? It’s not quit ready to go yet That’s the other project I’m working on and I’ll have that fixed very shortly. Pretty slick though, isn’t it?…..[ois skin=”below post”]
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I just thinned my square of spring wheat the other day, it was about 4 inches tall. It probably wasn’t much more than a week from when it came up. I have a feeling that week they’re quoting is if you pre-soak the seeds and the soil is at the optimal temperature.
I’m not a huge fan of wheat grass myself, but sprouts are definitely something to keep in mind; they are one of the few ways to get vitamin C *locally* in the dead of winter in snowy areas.
I’m also growing cat grass in 4″ pots, I definitely agree even 25 per square foot is less than optimal; 25 in one pot still looks sparse. For grain I use 4 per square foot.
John, I guess we’ll have to see how it works out with the wheat grass. If it’s 4 days only if pre-soaked, then why don’t they tell us those things? We should have pretty seasonal temperatures around here and I’ll keep my gardens covered at night. Maybe it will be days? I’m afraid I don’t even know what cat grass is!
Cat grass is more about the consumer than the plant. It’s a grain, usually oats, but sometimes wheat or in my case barley, that is grown in pots to bring to indoor cats when it is several inches tall. It’s my cat’s favorite treat.
They don’t say about presoaking because they say water daily. As long as the soil is thoroughly wet, presoaking only cuts out about a day. If the soil is somewhat dry, which it would need to be if you weren’t using SFG and were tilling it, it can take a while for the seed to get enough moisture to sprout. As to the temperature, I think the directions implicitly assume you are growing this inside.
Hopefully by now you have some good results 🙂
Hey John…by now my wheat grass is up and doing very well. I didn’t plant it thick enough though-something I will correct the next time I do it. And, this was grown outside! It was indeed 4 inches tall by day 7. It comes up and grows quickly…