BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening Growing Barley Greens for Health

Hello Zoe and everybody -

Please share your experiences with us if you have in the past or do so now with growing micro-greens. There is too much to say on the subject in a post - so there will be a CG article coming up soon - please be on the lookout for it.

In the meantime there is no reason not to start asking for your opinions and so on ...

How do you use them in your kitchen - the sprouts and the grass?

Do you have a fancy juicer to get the best benefits from these micro-nutrient rich plants?

Which are your favourites? Do you have any? Do you add them to juices and smoothies? What recipes would you care to share?

Now I wonder - do you think that green juice is really the miracle worker it is supposed to be?

See, all the starter questions are there for you - and guess what ... I say there are many more to come too; so please join in our discussion and tell us about your adventures in growing your own grasses for your own health reasons.

Cheers

I did sprouting in the early seventies as a health food. My interest renewed a couple of years ago when I began easing into a plant based diet. Definitely healthier. I'm not entirely vegan yet, though moving in this direction. The plant based diet and fermented foods are a major factor in overcoming a debilitating digestive disorder.============================================== ===========================================Several years ago I came across a wonderful, now out of print, book (Add a Few Sprouts), by Martha H. Oliver. It was published in 1975 by Pivot, a Keats Publishing subsidiary, I think=================The book is extremely well written for a lay audience giving much history on sprouts and their nutritional value. The nutritional content of seeds increases many times during the process of sprouting and we have to wonder why we are not all doing sprouting as a daily routine for our health.------------The drink made from barley sprouts is high in vitamin C and was one of the first remedies Europeans found to treat scurvy on long sea voyages.===The greens also contain calcium, and B1, along with other nutrients.======== I found the barley sprout drink, called sweetwort, invigorating to my sensitive digestive tract. Greens are certainly a neglected and rich source of nutrition that we can grow inside. ==========The one problem I encountered with barley sprouts is leaving them too long with out rinsing. I nearly re-invented beer!=========================== This is one of the topics I plan to write about. I look forward to reading your CG one on this great subject! Cheers, Zoe

Hello Zoe - here you are ... maybe you were expecting a different heading? Not sure but let's see, could be that others will share their experiences on this subject, and soon. Hope you are well today,
Cheers

Greetings, Leslie, I hope some others will join in here too! A search on the internet for how to grow and use barley greens turns up a lot of information. I will start growing the greens and using them now. Originally my interest was in the sprouts for the benefits to digestion. I made juice\broth from them that was quite tasty. The greens should go well with my other greens in drinks and soups. Hope you made time to smell the roses. Zoe

Hi Zoe and all,

Yebo, I try to smell the roses daily to offset the other nonsense that lurks around in my head!

You are so right - there is so much information on barley greens on the 'net that one has to slim down and focus. For the article I promised I have decided (mind changes are possible!) to concentrate on Wheatgrass as a start - it seems to be an obvious beginning to this fascinating area of nutrition ... and container gardening too.

Well, let's get to it then.

cheers