Every year when I order stalks of wheat to weave for Saint Brigid’s feast day on February first I end up with many leftover heads of wheat. I snap the heads off the stalks then put them into a bowl and leave them on my counter because they’re so unusual and lovely.
This year during Lent I wanted to grow another indoor plot of wheatgrass for all of us to watch turn from seed to new life. It shows in such lovely form the sacrifice that Christ made on our behalf. Have you read this parable lately?
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. John 12:24
So we took those old heads of wheat that I’ve been saving (in years past I’ve simply bought wheat kernels in bulk at the health food store) and started to dismantle them one seed at a time.
Each stalk holds between 30-50 kernels of wheat. We counted. 🙂
The chaff and the seeds. I don’t know why, but it makes me think of the sheep and the goats.
We prepared a bowl of soil that we could keep indoors and sprinkled our seeds fairly thickly on top of the dirt. We covered the seeds with a bit more soil and watered.
The wheat seeds sprout quickly, within a few days. And in no time your wheat needs a haircut!
And then the Vikings invade. At least they always seem to in our house.
We don’t mind, though. We like Vikings. And despite what you might think, they sing Christ is Risen just about as loud as the Greeks! Amazing.
Hoping you play with your food, too…
Some links on growing wheatgrass:
Basics on Wikipedia
Growing wheatgrass in various containers
Growing wheatgrass for Easter
Cheers!
The Woman and the Wheat 
Jane,
I love this! I absolutely love it! You made me laugh at the end….with the pic of the Viking who sings as loud as the Greeks, CHRIST IS RISEN!
With much love and admiration,
Kh. Tammy
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Beautiful…thank you for sharing how you took the wheat berries off and the wheat germ…what a wonderful process. You could grind it into flour (we do…my mother-in-law gave us a wheat grinder) to bake your bread with! ♥ I adore that quilted table cloth.
Yes, we thought about grinding the grain, but because I purchased the wheat stalks for weaving I thought that perhaps the grain had been grown with pesticides. I asked the grower and, yep, they did, so that’s why we didn’t go in the flour direction.
The tablecloth… I made that last Pascha to line my Easter basket with. But… it grew. It grew, and it grew, and it grew! Too large for the basket and just to the right size to fit on our large, round table. It was fun to make 🙂
Awesomeness!
Love, your friendly neighborhhood Viking.
We have wheatgrass growing in our kitchen right now 🙂 Do you do anything with the wheatgrass once you’ve cut it short?
Nope, we just sort of play with it, cut it a few times and eat the cuttings or blend them into smoothies… Eventually it makes it back into the ground as compost…
Such a fun idea! Thanks for sharing. I love the comparision of goats and sheep for the wheat and chaff. Probably could go for any division in agriculture. The Viking is adorable. when my son was young, my husband would use the camcorder to record his lego stories.
Is this like the wheat grass I’d have gotten at the pet store for our cats to nibble?
Hilarene, I would bet the wheatgrass you buy in a pet store is the same you’ll find in a feed store, or a health food store… I’ve heard guinea pigs like to nibble it, too 🙂