Grow a Spring or Easter Basket

Celebrate spring or Easter by making your own unique, home-grown gift baskets. It's fun and easy and a fresh alternative to bagged, plastic grass. This is a wonderful learning project for young, supervised children and grown-ups, alike.

Steps

  1. Line the bottom of your container or basket with a scrap of burlap, or another loosely woven type of fabric. Note: If you are using a real basket, line the sides of the basket too. (See tips for container and fabric selections.)
  2. Add outdoor potting soil to about one inch below the rim of the container.
  3. Sprinkle an even, uniform layer of grass seed over the top of the soil.
  4. Sprinkle a thin layer of soil over the grass seed, covering the seeds no more than {{safesubst:#invoke:convert|convert}}.
  5. Very gently, pat down the cover layer of soil.
  6. Using a spray bottle, saturate the soil with water. Allow the water to seep down over the grass seed. (Water should not be floating on the top.)
  7. Lightly cover the container with white cheesecloth (white gauze, a flour sack towel, etc.) Secure the cloth covering to the container with clothespins, a sturdy rubber band, a length of twine, or any type of fastener that can easily be removed during re-watering. (The cloth covering will allow sunlight to encourage your grass to sprout, but prevent birds from snacking on your grass seed.)
  8. Place your planted container in a sunny spot outdoors. Choose a location where pets cannot gain access to it.
  9. Lift the cloth covering daily and thoroughly water the soil with a squirt bottle. Allow the water to saturate the soil; water should not be floating on the top.
  10. You should start to see sprouts in about 10 days. Keep the basket covered until the grass has reached a height of about an inch and a half to two inches.
  11. Keep the soil moist, not wet.
  12. As the grass begins to mature and thicken, pinch out any stalks that appear unhealthy to encourage new shoots of healthier grass to come up.

Tips

  • Containers: Use plastic containers such as empty, clean butter or margarine tubs, or coffee cans. Poke holes in the bottom of these containers to allow for drainage. Add a handle if you like. Carefully poke a hole on opposing sides of the container near the top edge of the soil. Insert a sturdy ribbon, braided twine, section of a wire coat hanger, shoestring, etc. through the holes to form a handle. You can also use a leftover plastic plant pot or a terra cotta pot (wash them before adding clean soil), or use a real basket.
  • Gift ideas: hide a few jelly beans or other small candies among the blades of grass and tuck in a colored, decorated, hard-boiled egg. Add a packet or two of spring flower seeds. In a larger gift basket for a gardening friend, decorate the gift with a garden trowel or other small hand tool. Use your imagination!
  • Liner fabrics: Use any loose-weave fabric that will allow water to easily drain through, such as burlap, a section of an old T-shirt, the leg of a pair of pantyhose, cheesecloth, etc.

Warnings

  • Protect your work area with layers of newspaper or work outdoors.
  • Close the packages or containers of soil and grass seed tightly to keep them fresh and to keep out small rodents and other pests.
  • Store unused soil and grass seed in a cool, dry location out of the reach of small children.
  • Begin this project after the risk of frost.
  • Supervise small children when performing this project.

Things You'll Need

  • Clean container with drainage holes
  • Scrap or section of loosely woven fabric to line the container
  • Clean, outdoor potting soil
  • Grass seed
  • Water in a squirt bottle
  • Garden gloves (optional)
  • Something to form a handle (optional)

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