Prepare Your Wheat Grass Growing Medium (step 3)

Preparing Your Medium

Now this is really up to you. As with most plants you can grow in many different mediums. Soil, Coco, Capillary mats, etc. Wheatgrass will even grow without any soil/medium at all.

However, were going to stick to soil in this guide. I’m not discrediting the other mediums; in fact I use all of them. I simply feel that soil is a great way to get used to growing wheatgrass.

Prepping your flat:

The first thing we need to do is make sure that our flat has drain holes either built in or cut in by you…

If you have to make the holes yourself this is a pain, but know that you will only do this once and simply reuse this flat over and over.

Your 10×21 seedling flat should look like the one below:

Xxxx

If your flat has fewer holes than the picture above you may consider cutting more. You do not want any standing water in your flat. Your efforts will be lost to mold. Take a moment to do this right the first time and you will be rewarded forever.

*Cutting holes in the flat: Be careful/Take your time. You can do this with a pair of scissors or a knife. I just had to do this with about a dozen flats the other day… I used a knife to poke down into the flat then turned the knife to the left then to the right a little bit to pry open a little slot. Not so large that soil will pass through but water will easily. Have a look at the picture above again.

Prepping Your Soil

If you have purchased a wheatgrass kit from wheatgrass101.com you can skip this step and move on to spreading your soil.

I’m going to go over the ratio we use for wheatgrass growing. As with everything “wheatgrass”, it is very simple: 50% Canadian Sphagnum 50% Organic Non Animal Topsoil

Feel free to try your own mix here… if you have a composter I would suggest adding that. I also want to note that I personally am not against Animal fertilizers.

You will see in our wheatgrass community that a lot of people are concerned with using animal meuneors and stick only to Kelp and other mineral fertilizers… I say each to ones own. At this very moment I have a whole rack of wheatgrass (6 flats) growing with bat guano organic fertilizer standing 3 feet from me. I like to try it all, which is really the reason I’m talking to you today… I like to record my results! J

The Mix

The easiest way to mix soil… is either outside on the ground or on a work bench. I use Concrete mixing trays I purchased from Lowes or Home Depot. Using a quart sized Measuring cup I quickly divvy up the amount of soil I need. A quart scoop of sphagmum and a quart scoop of top soil mixed is more than enough to do 1 flat of wheatgrass. Do your best to break the soil up with your hands(feel free to wear gloves) so there are no clumps. You want the soil as loose as possible making it easier for the roots to grow.

Xxx Show trays and scoops

Spreading the Soil

Make sure the soil is broken up into a fine powder. Spread 1 ½ quarts of soil into the flat. Make sure the soil is spread evenly and is as level as possible.

Xxx spreading soil

Watering the flat, if you’re using a diluted organic fertilizer it is fine to use it right from the start. The wheatgrass seed is incredibly hearty.

Add moisture to the soil before placing the seeds… I personally like to use a spray bottle. This way the soil isn’t disturbed by dumping water coming from a watering pot.

You may want to take an empty flat (without drain holes) and put it on the bottom of your prepared flat. No need to make a mess while watering, just note that this flat should come off soon as to not leave standing water in your growing flat.

You want the soil moist but not soaking. We have to water once more after spreading the seeds and it’s not beneficial to over water at this stage. After growing a few flats you will learn exactly what the grass needs.