We are growing barley grass now. I know, I know... It's a little weird. But I think it's a lot of fun. A few weeks ago, after I had gone to bed at 8PM, Henry stayed up and watched a documentary called "Food Matters". The next day, when I turned on the I-pad, up popped the last web page that Henry was viewing.
It was a page from the food matters website on green super foods. It was interesting to me, since I used to take pleasure in drinking wheat grass shots purchased from Jamba Juice. I thought, "Well, if Henry is taking an interest in super greens, we might as well start growing some!" So I did a little research and decided on barley grass. It's loaded with good stuff . I ordered a barley grass growing kit and got started as soon as it arrived at the house.
From seed to juice, the process took us 9 days.
It took a day and a half to rinse, soak and sprout the seeds... Zoey did the rinsing and she did a great job. So now, I've deemed that "Zoey's job".
Once the seeds were sprouted, Henry and I did the planting and initial watering. Of course both the kids were jumping at the chance to grab a hold of the compost and throw it around the kitchen. Ethan is particularly good at this task. He's fast and he can snatch a handful of dirt up in the blink of an eye. So, I guess his job is to keep us on our toes. Luckily it wasn't too hard to keep the kids contained and it ended up being a relatively clean process.
Three days later, grass was clearly growing. We kept the grass indoors at first. But Zoey and Ethan could not keep themselves from playing with the dirt. So, we moved it outside. This didn't really keep them away either. It's been warm enough outside that the children are drawn to the backyard where they've both spent time admiring the grass as it grows. We were all very excited to visit the grass daily, in anticipation of the mega-healthy grass shot that were awaiting us.
The barley grass grew and grew. It became Ethan's FAVORITE place to hang out. He must have broken the cold frame at least twice a day until we finally ditched it.
Zoey would say, "Barley Grass so pretty Mommy!"
We watered it every morning.
Soon it really looked like grass.
On the ninth day, Henry and Zoey cut one quarter of the grass down so we could bring it inside and make a few shots. One tray of grass brings us enough juice for 4 days (approximately 12 shots).
We have this fancy Champion Juicer that we used to juice our grass. It was a rather expensive purchase. But we'd saved up the money for it and we consider it part of our health care costs. It's really fantastic. We've used this juicer to make not only juice but we've also made ice cream and sorbet with it. It's really worth the cost, so long as you use it.
We juiced this batch of grass until we couldn't squeeze another drop out of it. Then I poured three shots: one for myself, one for Henry and one for Marie. We all raised our glasses up. Then like a group of college students taking a shot of Wild Turkey Bourbon for the first time, the juice went down the hatch.
I like the taste. But I'm also a crazy girl who drinks cayenne pepper tea. It feels like an adventure to me. The whole process of growing and juicing our own grass encompasses so many aspects of life that I want to share with my children. Sure, were just growing grass and juicing it. But this process helps my children to feel more of a connection with the goodness that mother Earth has to offer. It teaches them about good health and how a little work, daily care and patience can bring to us a quick, healthy and energy-packed juice that we simply can't get anywhere else. The process brings us together as well. Everyone here shares in the process and everyone here gets some kind of joy out of growing our barley grass.
Oh and I forget to mention... Ethan loves the juice so much that he will lick the inside of the juice container clean. He loves it. And Marie gets a huge kick out of watching Ethan enjoy his greens.
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