When the Great Polar Blast of 2021 hit back in February, all the bushes out front froze to death. Buy August, I had finally accepted the loss and asked the yard guys to cut the dead bushes down without mercy.

Left with a small but barren patch of yard with nothing but dirt and the nubs of dead bushes, I decided to make use of the land (and the automated drip irrigation) to grow some food. I had always wanted to do an urban vegetable garden, and now it was basically thrust upon me, waiting directly outside the front door, teasing me to make it so.

Of course, I could never leave Molly, our curious little naturalist, out of such a plan. She would definitely make it fun and bring new ideas to the table.

So Molly and I went to Sledd Nursery on a Saturday morning to consult with the local experts. We left Sledd with $70 worth of seeds for a “fall” crop and two bags of basically fancy dirt.

At the last minute, Molly added in some wheatgrass starters because she wanted to make wheatgrass juice. 🤷🏻‍♂️. I asked her, “Have you ever had wheatgrass juice?” She said no but she had “seen it on YouTube” and it “looked good”. Why not? I’m trying to say yes to my kids whenever I can, to encourage their confidence and curiosity.

We went home and planted patches of broccoli, squash, corn, parsley, and arugula. I crossed my fingers. 🤞

After a couple of weeks, the wheatgrass was doing better than anything else out there.

So we trimmed some wheatgrass (it’s indistinguishable from “regular” grass), tossed it in the blender with some water, and strained the juice. The resulting juice was supposedly healthy but had the bright fluorescent green color of lime Jello.

And it tasted like… grass water. One step away from dirt water.

Molly had a couple of sips and called it a day. “It’s gross, Dad.”

I added salt and Tabasco. That upgraded it to spicy ocean water. 😋 I think the rest of the wheatgrass is for me. But thank you, Molly, for the cool idea. Let’s see how you like arugula later.

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