My bunny enjoys nibbling on wheat grass. I have been buying pots of it from Petco. But it occured to me that I could grow pots of wheat grass for far less than what one pot costs. Anyone familiar with growing it? Where can I get seeds?TIA

Cheryl, I haven't grown it in awhile but it is quite easy to grow.

http://garden.org/ideas/view/S...

I know how to sprout! i evven have some sprouting seeds in the freezer. I think the bunny would love some sprouts!

I just found out wheatgrass is grown from wheatberries. I didn't know that! I thought they were some type of grass seed! duh

I've grown oats for my cat herd. I just start a pot with a thick layer of oats, covered with a thin layer of topsoil. Water well and let it sit in the dark for three or four days. When exposed to light the seeds (which are sprouting) will take off and grow quickly.

I wonder if wheat would be similar or perhaps the bunny would like oats also?

I pick up the oat grass seed at one of the local pet stores and have ordered in online in the past.

I picked out some of the larger sprouting seeds, favoring wheatberries. I used the old container that I bought at Petco. This is what has grown in 3 days. SUCCESS!! Pepper bunny is going to be so happy!

I bought a pound of "Hard Red Spring Wheat Berries" from Fred Meyers, and I've been trying to start them for a few days (in a cold house, on paper towels and in potting mix). They are prob ably sold for making b read, not sprouting

They're not exactly leaping up eagerly to sprout, but yesterday several either starting growing m old or a fuzzy root tip emerged. These are for my cat.

It's been 3-4 days. My next plan is to look for "sprouting seeds" at a health food store.

Also, I may screen some "fall rye" out of a bag of mixed "cover crop" seeds I've had for a few years. I hear that the stalks from rye are thinner and maybe more tender than wheat.

Rick, I soaked the seeds for a day before putting them in the soil.

We sprout red wheat berries all the time. What we do is this:

Put the berries in a clean 5 gallon bucket and fill up mostly with water, then let sit overnight. In the morning, drain the whole lot into a colander and rinse it off really, really well.

Let it sit in the colander for a couple days, rinsing the lot several times each day. Occasionally you might dump the contents into that clean bucket, fill back with water and then immediately dump back into the colander. This process really cleans the seed while refreshing the moisture content.

Within a few days you'll start to see germination. At that point you would transfer to trays of soil or whatever you want to do with it. You could spread them out on a cookie sheet with water and they will grow into grass.

Dave, do you order your wheat berries online or purchase locally?

We buy them from the local co-op. A truck comes once a month with the stuff that everyone in the group orders. They sell wheat berries for making bread and other things like that.

Wheat Montana is the farm where the wheat comes from. Their 'Prairie Gold' variety is our favorite. It makes really good bread and is also easy to sprout. 'Bronze Chief' is good, too.

Health food stores usually have bins of whole wheat and oats, and if not bins, certainly would have packages.

Thanks - I never thought to soak them, despite their hard shells. Are you doing that mainly to soften the shell, or to rinse away germination inhibitors? I might try a hydrogen peroxide soak-and-rinse as an alternative to multiple soaks & rinses over several days.

Fortunately, Friday night, they were definitely sprouting on the paper towel.

Over the weekend, they emerged from the soil in a shallow bowl. Their elongation sped up on their second day up, maybe they liked the brighter light I gave them.

I got around 80% germination on paper, and 70% emergence from soilless mix.

I found some several-year-old Fall Rye seed that I bought for cover crops, so I sowed some of them in a second bowl. I hope Toby appreciates the cat grass!

You know what? IDK why I soak? LOL Soaking is the first process of sprouting, so in order to get the seeds to sprout fast, I just soaked them before growing them the traditional way. It sat on a sunny windowsill from the getgo. Right now it is taller than any pot I've seen growing at Petco!! I think I could use more seed than the tablespoon I used to make is denser. Some of the grass is falling over. I'm sure Pepper Bunny doesn't mind.


Compare!

Cool! I only used 2 teaspoons in a 7" bowl. The bowl is shallow, wide and very heavy.

Doesn't the rabbit knock iyour'sover?

Oh yeah. See the teeth marks on the rim of the pot? Pepper is very active with her greens. She even pulls them out of the pot to get at them. For that reason, I need the root system to be fully surrounding the soil so she doesn't make too much of a mess.