Wheatgrass Easter Centerpieces

I grew wheatgrass for several projects last Easter and really enjoyed the process. It’s the perfect project for kids (or the rest of us who love instant gratification) because it grows so quickly. Even so, there are just a few days left to plant wheatgrass in time for Easter!

You can buy wheat berries (seeds) at Whole Foods and similar stores. The Bob’s Red Mill package I bought (containing a million times more than I needed) was about $3. The only other supplies you need are some soil and a container with drainage holes. In case you have trouble finding and identifying wheat berries, here’s a close up of what they look like:

The grass from these seeds was plenty tall in 10 days. If it gets too tall before Easter, you can just trim it!

I planted my grass in a few metal trays (from the dollar store and a thrift store). Greg added the necessary nail holes to the bottom of the trays for drainage. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the grass looks nicer in something with sides — it hides the dirt and seeds that are otherwise visible.

How to Grow Wheatgrass:

1. Soak seeds overnight. (Be sure to soak enough seeds to completely cover the surface of whatever vessel you’re planting them in.)

2. Add soil to your container and water it.

3. Sprinkle the seeds on top of the layer of soil.

4. Place your container in indirect sunlight, then loosely cover with plastic wrap or a transparent plastic tray to retain moisture.

5. For the first three days, water heavily in the morning. If the grass seems dry, mist or water again in the evening. Keep the container covered.

6. After three days of growth, uncover your grass. Continue to water heavily once per day.

To finish the centerpieces, I downloaded and printed the adorable banner from Paper Coterie. (Paper Coterie is apparently recently out of business — sorry about that. Pomegranate Paper Co. has a similar banner, you just may need to scale it down a bit.) I hot-glued the banner pieces to string, and glued that to wooden skewers.

After realizing that my dirt wasn’t deep enough to hold the skewers upright, I stuck the skewers into hard-boiled eggs, instead. Worked like a charm! The polka dot eggs in my centerpieces were blown out before decorating, but you could use dyed hard-boiled eggs — just don’t leave them outside in the sun for the day!

After the holiday, trim your wheatgrass and throw it into a smoothie! You can also grind up leftover berries to make flour.

I have another small wheatgrass project coming later this week — so go buy some wheat berries and stay tuned!