How to Grow Wheatgrass at Home and Juice this Superfood

September 30, 2020

Here is a complete guide to juicing wheatgrass including growing it at home, juice recipes, and the incredible nutritional benefits.

Why wheatgrass? With hundreds of scientific studies indicate that eating more fruits and vegetables reduces the risk of illness, even cancer and heart disease, eating more fruits and vegetables should be our health priority. Wheatgrass is so nutritious that many experts consider wheatgrass equivalent to eating many vegetables at once!

Wheatgrass Benefits

According to the Hypocrates Institute, a reputable educational resource about raw foods, wheatgrass is one of their favorite foods because it:

cleanses your blood
improves skin and hair
builds muscle and endurance
fights infection

lowers blood pressure
fights tumors
lessens the effects of radiation
increases energy when consumed daily
neutralizes toxins including nicotine, cadmium, strontium, mercury, and polyvinyl chloride.
acts as an appetite suppressant by stimulating the thyroid and metabolism

The specific major nutrients in wheatgrass are chlorophyll, protein, amino acids, alkalizing minerals, vitamins (especially riboflavin, thiamin, vitamin c), and enzymes (including lactobacillus).

Grow Wheatgrass at Home

You can purchase wheatgrass powder and tablets, but dried forms of any food do not have all the nutrients of fresh food. Bottled wheatgrass is available in your natural foods store, but any bottled or canned juice is not as nutritious as fresh. You can purchase wheatgrass in flats at your farmers’ market or health food store. It is also called ‘hard red wheat’ and ‘pet grass’ because cats and dogs eat it for digestive health.

It is so easy and inexpensive to grow at home. If you’ve thrown grass seed on a lawn, you can grow wheatgrass!

Don’t waste money or time on expensive growing kits, special pots, or complicated instructions – they are not needed. And don’t be discouraged by warnings about mold – this only happens with large commercial growers. Growing wheatgrass at home is just about the easiest thing you’ll ever do. So easy that I suggest growing 2 or 3 pots a couple days apart so when you’ve harvested one, the next pot is ready, and you never run out.

First, buy organic wheatgrass seed (also called ‘hard red wheat’ seed) at your local garden store or online. A seed packet will get you about three small pots of wheatgrass. One and 5 pound bags are available online thru Amazon for about $2 a pound. Extra seed will keep in your refrigerator – I’ve been storing seed in my fridge for over a year! Look for “certified organic” to avoid unnecessary chemicals.

Fill a small plant pot with regular potting soil. Organic soil insures that you avoid chemicals. Spread seed liberally on the surface and cover with about 1/8” of soil. Water the soil and place anywhere near sunlight. The seeds will sprout in about 2 days.

The best time to harvest is when the nutrient content is at its peak. This is anytime after the grass is about 4” tall but BEFORE the “jointing stage” which is when the initial stalk of grass divides into leaves and stems, and the stalk starts to brown at the base. This occurs when the grass is about 10” tall or in about 10 days. So you have a comfortable amount of time to harvest.

I grab the whole grassy crop growing in my pot and cut about an inch which gives me a handful – enough to add wonderful nutrients to my juice but not enough to upset my stomach or create a bitter taste. I repeat this up to three times and then compost the remaining crop and soil and start over. By 3 cuts you’ve depleted the nutrients in the soil.

(If you want to buy kitchen knife, But Don’t know what is the best! Decent Home Decor Reviewed top 7 Nakiri knife, In Case you can check that out!)

Some people drink wheatgrass straight, and claim that they like the taste, and that anyone can get used to it. I haven’t yet reached this stage so I prefer to add a small amount to all my juice recipes.

You will need a special juicer to juice wheatgrass or any leafy green. “Slow” juicers are the best, in my opinion. “Triturating” juicers arguably do an even better job by extracting more juice and nutrients, but they are also more expensive. There are even hand operated wheatgrass juicers if you want to get off the grid!

Wheatgrass Juice Recipes

Just add 1” of wheatgrass by which I mean, grab the wheatgrass that is growing in your pot, and cut about an inch long of what amounts to a finger thickness of gathered wheatgrass. Add this amount of wheatgrass to any juice recipe using sweet fruits or veggies such as carrot, grape, watermelon, and apple. Here are my favorites.