Hi friends, and welcome to another Sunday with Sarah. I'm Sarah Baldwin. I'm a
Waldorf teacher and the owner of Bella Luna Toys and today I want to show you
how easy it is to have a natural Easter basket like this and grow real live
grass in it. It's so much nicer and more eco-friendly than putting synthetic
grass and it's easier than you think. I'm going to show you how to do it and
at Bella Luna Toys we sell this Easter Grass Kit which makes it really easy, has
everything you need and instructions and one little packet. But you can also use
rye berry seeds or wheat berry seeds and potting soil to do the same thing from a
garden supply store. So to use this kit let me show you what we do. Inside
there's this magic peat disk and this is a really fun activity to do it with kids
as well. When I was a kindergarten teacher, I planted Easter grass—spring
grass—every year with the children and it's an early science
lesson, watching the seed sprout and watching them
grow and learning what it takes to make a plant grow. So we just take our
little peat disk. I put three cups of warm water here
we're going to pour it over the peat disk which will magically expand
and you're going to wait until all the water has been absorbed. So that can take
a few minutes, 10 or 15 minutes. I'm gonna let that expand and I'll be back with
you as soon as we're ready to move on. And we're back. That only took a couple
of minutes, it doesn't take long at all. So I'm gonna let that continue to absorb
and expand a little bit and then here I've got my basket. You can use any type
of basket. This is our Swing Bolga Basket from Bella Luna Toys.
I love these baskets for Easter baskets. they're handmade, they're Fairtrade made
in Ghana, West Africa, by women. They are beautiful and the sale of this basket
goes to support these women in villages there. But you can really use any type of
basket. Another reason I like these baskets: they're so sturdy and they can
be used long after Easter as a lunch basket or to store toys in or as a
crafts basket. It could be a knitting—child's knitting basket or sewing basket.
But to plant the grass you're going to want to line the basket. Now I'm using
aluminum foil but you could also—if you find a plastic container that fits the
diameter that would fit neatly inside here you could use that too
but I'll use a couple of pieces of foil. I tuck in the edges so they won't be
visible above the rim. I've got one going that way and then it just takes some
playing with it to shape it to fit inside your basket. You're going to want
to start your grass about a week before if you're planning to use it as an
Easter basket, for a child on Easter morning, you're going to want to start
this process about a week before Easter. Now I've got my peat disk, it has
expanded. I'm just gonna fluff it with my fingers.
Now when I planted the Easter basket that you see that's already grown I had
some extra soil here, as you might. You can also fill a play saucer like this or
really any container and use the extra in there and it makes a lovely
centerpiece for your table. You can add some little spring decorations to it or
on a spring nature table. And then also in the packet you
will receive a packet of grass seed like this and I recommend soaking them
overnight. So these have been soaking overnight and soaking them overnight
will allow the seeds to sprout much more quickly than they would otherwise
and shorten your growing time. So I'm going to just put them pretty thickly on
top of the soil.
Make sure they're spread evenly around.
Okay.
And then one trick I do is I cover them with some clear plastic wrap and this
also helps shorten the growing time. We will keep the moisture in and I do that,
I leave the plastic on just until I see them sprout. When you see the roots
starting to sprout then you can take off the plastic but again it just holds in
the moisture, will help the seeds sprout more quickly. Oh, I forgot one thing.
We're gonna take a little bit more of the soil. You don't have to do this,
they'll still sprout and grow even if the seeds are sitting on top but then
I just take a little bit more of the soil—very, very lightly, you don't want
the seeds too buried and too deep—and just sprinkle a little bit more soil on
top, like so. Then I cover with plastic. Then set your
basket in a sunny spot, on a sunny window. Check it every day, water it every day. I
prefer to use a spray water bottle because if you poured water
in from a cup it might get too wet. You don't want the wetness to leak through
and soak your basket, the spray bottle would prevent that from happening. But I
just spay it. You can spray when you first plant them and then spray it every
day. When I did this with children I would have them do the spraying every
day. I'd have them check the seeds in the morning, see how
much they've grown and give it another spray. Now of course if you're planning
to make a child's Easter basket, you might want to surprise them on Easter
morning and not have them be part of the process but you could plant grass
like this in any container, anytime during the spring. And that's it.
When the seeds start to sprout, just remove the plastic. They'll continue to
grow and in about a week your basket will look as beautiful as this. So I hope
maybe this year you'll give it a try. Try an Easter basket with real, live, living
grass and forget the plastic stuff. Hiding eggs in here is fun, too, because
the grass can be so deep. So I hope that was helpful.
Happy spring to you! As always, I value your comments and questions and I will
see you again next time. Thanks for watching.