The Nephew working up my garden spot
Oh, goodness sakes. I can hardly wait to get out and kick around in that good dirt. I’m blocking from my mind right now last summer’s miserable three months of 100* heat and NO TOMATOES.
ahmmmmmm…
Okay, I’ve erased my memory–not a hard task at my age–and I’ll just tear into the garden planting expecting great harvests of taters, onions, squash, cantaloupes, okra (or okry as real Southerners call it,) and of course, tomatoes. There isn’t any reason to plant sweet corn here because our hot winds blow the pollen away and after months of babying, I find cobs with only a lonely kernel here and there. So very vexing.
In preparation for Good Friday next week, the grandkids and the nieces planted Resurrection Gardens as shown below from the super nifty homeschool blog Homeschool Creations. This is a great opportunity for discussion and giving young children a better understanding of the resurrection of Christ.
Gramps and I grow wheat, so I just trotted out to the grain bin and dumped out the seeds I needed into a bucket, but if you have to go looking for wheat berries at a health food store you might not have time to grow lush wheat grass by Good Friday. It’s worth trying, however. I think you could even use fast sprouting bean or pea seeds. Or pile rocks over the ‘tomb’. (That would be more accurate anyway.)
From Jolanthe of Homeschool Creations:
I know there are so many ideas floating around for Resurrection Gardens, and our kids have been so excited to put ours together this year. The Resurrection Garden is a hands-on reminder of what Easter is really about ~ a visual reminder of the tomb and all that it signifies!
For our Resurrection Garden, we used wheat grass and the results were so much faster than using grass seed {only 2 days!!}. I first tried growing wheat grass {sprouted wheat berries, or grain that is used to make bread} last year, and it was so simple and more lush than standard grass seed! Thanks to a great Easter Grass tutorial from my friend Amanda, it seemed to be the way to go for our Resurrection Garden as well.
How to Make a Resurrection Garden
If you’d like to make your own Resurrection Garden using wheat grass, you’ll need to grab just a few supplies, several that can be found outside.
- Potting soil
- A large pot base {I picked up a clay base at Walmart}
- a small pot {to use as a tomb}
- wheat berries ~ can be found at many whole food stores {see tip below}
- a rock to cover the mouth of the tomb
- small stones/pebbles, if desired
- spray bottle
- sticks and string to make crosses {we’re adding ours on Good Friday}
- large pot {optional}
Quick tip: We grind our own wheat, so I had wheat berries on hand to use. If you don’t have any, you should be able to find some at your local whole foods store ~ or bug a friend who grinds her own wheat! 🙂
1. Soak the wheat berries in water for at least 4 hours or overnight. This will help the wheat berries to sprout quickly!
2. Lay your small pot on its side and fill the large pot base with soil. Arrange the pieces of your Resurrection Garden as you would like ~ stones for a pathway and any other decorations you desire {moss, flowers, etc…}.
3. Gently place the soaked wheat berries on top of the soil, where you would like the grass to grow. Using the spray bottle, spritz the wheat berries thoroughly!
4. Once the wheat berries have been spritzed well, cover the tray to create a ‘greenhouse’ of sorts. I used a large pot as a dome to keep the moisture inside. Spritz every few hours {well, other than overnight!}.
5. Watch for sprouts! We placed our wheat berries around 6pm at night and when we took the top off the next morning at 7am, they had already started sprouting! You can now remove the cover off and have your kids spritz it throughout the day ~ keep it moist!
Here’s a look at the fast progress of the wheat grass on the morning of Day 2:
The morning of Day 3:
This is the morning of Day 5:
On Good Friday we’re going to add three crosses to the garden and roll the stone over the opening of the tomb {and perhaps have the kids find one that is a wee bit smaller!}.
The kids have really enjoyed putting the together and seeing the grass grow so quickly. It’s been a GREAT visual reminder as well for the Easter season.
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Okay, thanks so much to Homeschool Creations and until next time, God bless all y’all and enjoy Phillips, Craig and Dean doin’ Crucified With Christ
*These artists don’t necessarily endorse my blog, I just like ’em.
*And a very happy birthday to the youngest niece on her 11th birthday tomorrow! May all your wildest dreams come true, dear Tess. 🙂
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That is a really neat idea. The girls’ gardens look great. Thanks for being their Friday Art class teacher. They really enjoy it. The nephew & tractor team in the first picture make me happy as well. “If the women don’t find you handsome, they should at least find you handy”. (One of my favorite quotes from Red Green.)
I fear the women will probably find the nephew handsome as well as handy. We should have put a brick on his head. I was happy to find the Resurrection Garden idea. Wished I’d had it years ago, Anonymous.
What a fantastic idea – I’ve never heard of a resurrection garden before! I’m so doing this with my kids–correction, my husband and I are so doing this with our kids because my thumb is so un-green that I would kill even the heartiest of grasses. And would completely defeat the purpose of a “resurrection” garden 🙂
Winter wheat is the hardiest of plants–I have a great respect for anything that can cling to life in SW Oklahoma. If you keep it watered, not even your black thumb can kill it. 🙂
I hope all of you enjoy the project and the gardens deepen the meaning of Easter.