Dylanology 101: the hate songs

Go 'way from my window

Leave at your own chosen speed

I'm not the one you want, babe

I'm not the one you need

You say you're lookin' for someone

Who's never weak but always strong

To protect you an' defend you

Whether you are right or wrong

Someone to open each and every door

But it ain't me, babe

No, no, no, it ain't me, babe

It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go lightly from the ledge, babe

Go lightly on the ground

I'm not the one you want, babe

I will only let you down

You say you're lookin' for someone

Who will promise never to part

Someone to close his eyes for you

Someone to close his heart

Someone who will die for you an' more

But it ain't me, babe

No, no, no, it ain't me babe

It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

Go melt back in the night

Everything inside is made of stone

There's nothing in here moving

An' anyway I'm not alone

You say you're looking for someone

Who'll pick you up each time you fall

To gather flowers constantly

An' to come each time you call

A lover for your life an' nothing more

But it ain't me, babe

No, no, no, it ain't me, babe

It ain't me you're lookin' for, babe.

So here we are on another Monday morning (it's an afternoon, actually, but that Daylight Savings thing always messes with my head). And I've got Dylan on my mind once again. 

This song sticks in my head, as so many of his songs do. This was one that was picked up and covered by such diverse and unlikely recording artists as the Turtles, Johnny Cash, and even (inexplicably) Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix. Why? Because WE can't write songs like that, even though we long to. We. Can't. That's. Why. We might as well not even try.

The reason I want to dig into this sere and juicy masterpiece is not because of those covers. This is usually viewed as one of Dylan's cruellest hit-and-run songs, a nasty one because of his (as I've touched on before) naked honesty, which can be breathtaking. It's said and widely believed that this song was aimed at his first great love, Suze Rotolo, the beaming girl glommed onto his arm on the cover of his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. She was also "the creative one" in his notorious Ballad in Plain D (which, I must admit, is pretty strong in places, though I wasn't there to witness that awful midnight scene: "Beneath the bare lightbulb the plaster did pound/Her sister and I in a screaming battleground/While she in between, the victim of sound/Soon shattered as a child to the shadows.")

This one, though. Let's focus on it. The opening line immediately calls to mind one of those primal Appalachian ballads - or if it isn't Appalachian, it should be:

Go away from my window
Go away from my door
Go away, way, way from my bedside
And bother me no more
And bother me no more

My sister used to sing this in a totally inappropriate, histrionic, quasi-operatic style drenched with pretentious mannerisms. ALL her songs were self-pitying and grim, with not one celebrating life or music or anything else. I call these her "I've been wronged and I'm not going to forget it" songs. But I digress.

Dylan seems to be building on that first line, but elaborates on his need to see the back of his lover once and for all. "Go 'way from my window" hooks us emotionally with that old (how old? We don't know, we only know it hooks us) song of mourning.

"Leave at your own chosen speed" seems pretty nasty - at first. But then look at it, lift it up, turn it over. Fast or slow, high or low - just go - but go slowly, he seems to be saying. Why slowly? Because this woman DOES NOT want to leave him. Obviously, she doesn't, or he would not have to sing this song. So her "own chosen speed" wouldn't be very fast - would it? It might just leave him enough time to change his mind.

"I'm not the one you want, babe/l'm not the one you need." This isn't really a "get lost" statement at all, but an acknowledgement of his own inadequacy. He goes on at length about this ("You say you're lookin' for someone. . ."), and seems to be listing his shortcomings. This illusive/elusive ideal is "never weak, but always strong", protecting and defending his lover whether she is "right or wrong": now is that fair, realistic, or even possible? And just who is it who can "open each and every door"? Obviously he's talking about someone who is making impossible demands on him, or perhaps exposing his vulnerabilities, which is pretty much the same thing.

It goes on like that: I'm not the one you want, babe/I will only let you down. But oh boy, here comes those lines that make Dylan seem like a total bastard: "Go lightly from the ledge, babe/Go lightly on the ground." Here he seems to be telling her something unthinkable: go jump out the window! But he doesn't mean that at all. Look at the word "ledge". It's a reference to that first line, and the way his spurned love keeps hanging around his windowsill in hopeless hope (and note it's not a door - a window into his soul, perhaps? Oh boy, it must be Monday.)

Then look yet deeper. It's not "off the ledge", is it? It's "FROM the ledge", as in "go 'way FROM my window", and moreover, he admonishes her to go "lightly", which you could not exactly do if you jumped out the window! No, I now think (and I just realized this moments ago when I cracked the walnut shell of this thing) "go lightly" means "leave, but with a light heart." Don't carry baggage from this. It'll only weigh you down. So "go lightly on the ground": walk with a light step. If you committed suicide, it wouldn't exactly be "lightly", would it? (And here's another meaning peeping out: "don't take this lightly," but in this case, "DO take it lightly", perhaps to spare her the kind of heartache he is feeling.)

All, some or none of this might be true. But it points to layered poetry, even in this, one of Dylan's "simpler" songs.

The verse goes on, each line piling on the demands she is making of him, so that each one seems more impossible than the one before. Is he feeling inadequate to the task? You tell me."Someone to die for you and more" - what "more" is there for him to do? But how much of this is true? If we're angry with someone we love, we accuse them of all kinds of shit they wouldn't even think of doing. We stack the deck against them to shore up our own weakness. What more do you want from me?  I see evidence of a glass house here. What exactly did he expect of her? Was he performing that classic lover's ploy: reject her before she could reject him?

The most haunting lines are in the last verse: "Go melt back in the night" (echoing the gentle leavetaking of that "lightly off the ledge" line), a line that bespeaks a sort of illusion or beautiful dream evaporating into mist. "Everything inside is made of stone. There's nothing in here moving" - his emotions deadened by a loss he cannot accommodate - and, the one line that really looks like a slight, "and anyway, I'm not alone".

Dylan was almost never alone. I'm re-reading the several Dylan bios I have, and if ever a Lothario existed, it was him. I am sure he was unfaithful to Suze, in spite of her deep devotion to him: and in this, he may have felt inadequate, not good enough for her, and ready to defensively strengthen his own wobbly position any way he could.

And perhaps he was right: he wasn't worthy. This vibrant, intelligent woman, "the could-be dream lover of my lifetime", died of cancer in her early 60s, while Dylan still grinds along, his energy stretched thin like Bilbo's in The Hobbit because somewhere along the line, he grabbed the Ring of Power. He even told someone (was it Ed Bradley?) that early in his career, he made a deal with the devil. 

So here is Joan Baez singing this hurt/hurting song so tenderly, it's heartbreaking. There's no rancour here at all, merely sadness and regret. Baez still sings Dylan's songs in her concerts, and Dylan always speaks highly of her in the rare interviews he gives. "I generally like everything she does," he said when she recorded a double album of his songs in the '70s. And to explain the casual way he ignored her on that infamous London tour, he says, "You can't be in love and wise at the same time."

For it was Baez who broke up Bobby and Suze. There's no mistaking. Whether she knew it or not, whether it was really Suze's trip to Italy that did it, whether it was Suze who told Bobby to take a hike and get out of her face, Baez stepped into the turmoil that erupted in Ballad in Plain D, and grabbed the prize. I think it was a melancholy victory, however, for she never really "had" him after all: Baez went to see him when she heard he was sick, and a strange woman answered the door, a gorgeous exotic creature who looked like a model. 

She was. It was his new wife, Sara Lowndes, and Joan had had no idea he was married.

No, no, no, it ain't me, babe.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

At last, a statement I can get behind

Consolation? Perhaps, but not a prize

Artists struggle to survive in age of the blockbuster

RUSSELL SMITH

Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Nov. 28 2013, 5:00 PM EST

In the artistic economy, the Internet has not lived up to its hype. For years, the cybergurus liked to tell us about the “long tail” – the rise of niches, “unlimited variety for unique tastes” – that would give equal opportunities to tiny indie bands and Hollywood movies. People selling products of any kind would, in the new connected world, be able to sell small amounts to lots of small groups. Implicit in the idea was the promise that since niche tastes would form online communities not limited by national boundaries, a niche product might find a large international audience without traditional kinds of promotion in its home country. People in publishing bought this, too. The end result, we were told, would be an extremely diverse cultural world in which the lesbian vampire novel would be just as widely discussed as the Prairie short story and the memoir in tweets.

In fact, the blockbuster artistic product is dominating cultural consumption as at no other time in history. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent on each successive Hunger Games, and the rep cinemas have closed. A few sports stars are paid more individually than entire publishing houses or record labels earn in a year.

A couple of prominent commentators have made this argument recently about American culture at large. The musician David Byrne lamented, in a book of essays, that his recent albums would once have been considered modest successes but now no longer earn him enough to sustain his musical project. That’s David Byrne – he’s a great and famous artist. Just no Lady Gaga. The book Blockbusters: Hit-making, Risk-taking, and the Big Business of Entertainment, by business writer Anita Elberse, argues that the days of the long tail are over in the United States. It makes more sense, she claims, for entertainment giants to plow as much money as they can into guaranteed hits than to cultivate new talent. “Because people are inherently social,” she writes cheerily, “they generally find value in reading the same books and watching the same television shows and movies that others do.”

Well, the same appears to be true of publishing, even in this country. There are big winners and there are losers – the middle ground is eroding. Publishers are publishing less, not more. Everybody awaits the fall’s big literary-prize nominations with a make-us-or-break-us terror. Every second-tier author spends an hour every day in the dismal abjection of self-promotion – on Facebook, to an audience of 50 fellow authors who couldn’t care less who just got a nice review in the Raccoonville Sentinel. This practice sells absolutely no books; increases one’s “profile” by not one centimetre; and serves only to increase one’s humiliation at not being in the first tier, where one doesn’t have to do that.

Novelists have been complaining, privately at least, about the new castes in the literary hierarchy. This happens every year now, in the fall, the uneasiness – after the brief spurt of media attention that goes to the nominees and winners of the three major Canadian literary prizes, the Scotiabank Giller, the Governor-General’s, and the Rogers Writers’ Trust. The argument is that the prizes enable the media to single out a few books for promotion, and no other books get to cross the divide into public consciousness. And, say the spurned writers, this fact guides the publishers in their acquisitions. Editors stand accused of seeking out possible prize-winners (i.e. “big books”) rather than indulging their own tastes. This leads, it is said, to a homogenized literary landscape and no place at all for the weird and uncategorizable.

But even if this is true, what can one possibly do about it? Abolish the prizes? No one would suggest this – and even the critics of prize culture understand that the prizes were created by genuine lovers of literature with nothing but the best intentions, and that rewarding good writers financially is good, even necessary, in a small country without a huge market.

It’s not, I think, the fault of the literary prizes that the caste system exists. Nor of the vilified “media” who must cover these major events. It’s the lack of other venues for the discussion and promotion of books that closes down the options. There were, in the nineties, several Canadian television programs on the arts. There were even whole TV shows about books alone. Not one of these remains. There were radio shows that novel-readers listened to. There were budgets for book tours; there were hotel rooms in Waterloo and Moncton. In every year that I myself have published a book there have been fewer invitations and less travel. Now, winning a prize is really one’s only shot at reaching a national level of awareness.

So again, what is to be done? What does any artist do in the age of the blockbuster? Nothing, absolutely nothing, except keep on doing what you like to do. Global economic changes are not your problem (and are nothing you can change with a despairing tweet). Think instead, as you always have, about whether or not you like semicolons and how to describe the black winter sky. There is something romantic about being underground, no?

Look on the bright side: Poverty can be good for art. At least it won’t inspire you to write Fifty Shades of Grey.

BLOGGER'S NOTE. I re-ran this article strictly to make myself feel better. I was surprised to see how old it is, but in three years, things have only gotten worse. Strangely enough, it helps. It helps me feel that maybe-just-maybe I'm not the only one, though talking about failure is the greatest taboo and career-sinker there is. I don't remember seeing a single article about it on the internet, except for "oh, I was such a failure" followed by "but here is what I did to overcome this failure and find soaring success." Failure is something that really doesn't happen unless you go on to succeed, right? This is reflected by all those chirpy little Facebook memes about failure being a wonderful thing that you should "embrace", not be afraid of, and see as a stepping-stone to greater and greater victories. But what if it doesn't happen that way?

When this article first came out, I felt a tremendous amount of comfort in these words, but it's the only piece I've ever found that dares to criticize the industry. Or something. The whole system? In no way, shape or form do I blame individual publishers for this state of affairs, because they're just trying to survive. It's a juggernaut, and if "numbers" are any indication (and sheer numbers of "likes" and "stars" are now the ONLY measure of a writer's worth), I've failed.

I've seen fellow writers strive and strive and hurl their work at the wall, and once in a while it cracks. I'm not so sure I am willing to do that. The system was always hard, but it wasn't impossible. I didn't sell a huge number of copies of my first two novels, but I guess you could say they were critically well-received. "Fiction at its finest" from the Edmonton Journal now seems particularly heartbreaking. The Montreal Gazette books section gave me an entire page, with (mysteriously) a huge picture of me in colour, and said this book deserved to be on the bestseller list but never would be, because it was published and publicized on such a small scale. So the praise was sort of backhanded, after all, and only set up false hopes.

I thought I had a shot.

I didn't, and I know now that it would've been better, if I wanted TGC to see the light of day, to just set up a blog for it and hope for the 10 - 25 views I usually get. But it's 10 - 25 more views than I'd get if I did nothing. 

I can't lie in wait any more. I have to "move on", wherever "on" is. "Let go", and not "let God" because there isn't one, though I was a lay minister and taught Bible classes for fifteen years. Now THERE is a story of heartbreak, but I didn't just make it up out of my own head.

I know I don't make myself popular by getting into this stuff, as it's seen as "being negative", which is a big no-no no matter how dire things are. Just paste a smile on and keep turning that facet of yourself towards the world/social media (though turning and turning and turning it like that can be completely exhausting). People who are seriously interested in writing (or becoming writers, which is another thing entirely) want to believe that I am an anomaly. I suspect I'm not. The difference is, I talk about it, openly admit I have failed, and no one else does. If somebody tells me not to do something, I will immediately want to do it. And usually I do, fuck the consequences, because as a writer, it is all I have. Shouldn't I be able to write about anything I want or need to? I will continue to, whether it is popular or not. It does not matter, in the long run. In the world's terms, success will never come to me, even though I have been told over and over again that I have the "right stuff".

So I will write whatever comes into my head. No law against it. And I can guarantee it will always be honest and tell my truth, whether it would fit on a Facebook meme or not.

An Interesting Story (1905): just the good part

Undies never talk, they swear

It's easily done, you just pick anyone

I can't understand

She let go of my hand

An' left me here facing the wall

I'd sure like to know

Why she'd go

But I can't get close to her at all

Though we kissed through the wild blazing nighttime

She said she would never forget

But now morning is clear

It's like ain't here

She just acts like we never have met.

It's all new to me

Like some mystery

It could even be like a myth

But it's hard to think on

That she's the same one

That last night I was with

From darkness, dreams are deserted

Am I still dreamin' yet ?

I wish she'd unlock

Her voice once and talk

'Stead of acting like we never met.

If she ain't feelin' well

Then why don't she tell

'Stead of turnin' her back to my face

Without any doubt

She seems too far out

For me to return to her chase

Though the night ran swirling and whirling

I remember her whispering yet

But evidently she don't

And evidently she won't

She just acts like we never have met.

If I didn't have to guess

I'd gladly confess

To anything I might've tried

If I was with her too long

Or have done something wrong

I wish she'd tell me what it is, I'll run and hide

Her skirt it swayed as a guitar played

Her mouth was watery and wet

But now something has changed

For she ain't the same

She just acts like we never have met.

I'm leavin' today

I'll be on my way

Of this I can't say very much

But if you want me to

I can be just like you

And pretend that we never have touched

And if anybody asks me, "Is it easy to forget ?"

I'll say, "It's easily done

You just pick anyone

And pretend that you never have met".

This came into my head today – it’s one of my favourite songs from one of my favourite albums, Another Side of Bob Dylan – because as with most of his stuff, it hits it right on the head. No obfuscation, no bullshitting, no fxxing around. One of the best things, the most unusual and powerful things about Dylan is his breathtaking honesty, though it is seldom mentioned by anyone, maybe not even consciously noticed.

Thus, if you analyze the words to Positively 4th Street, Dylan’s notorious diatribe of vengeance– well, guess what?  It isn’t. A diatribe. At. All. The song is merely a series of statements, true statements by the sound of them, strung together in the plainest English you ever heard:

You got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend

When I was down, you just stood there grinnin’

You got a lot of nerve to say you have a helping hand to lend

You just want to be on the side that’s winnin’

When Dylan became impossibly famous in his early 20s, everybody really did want a piece of him, and it eventually became obscene. At heart he is introverted and hypersensitive, has few real friends, and mostly cleaves to his highly-protected family (who, by the way, have been seriously threatened by flaming psychotics like "Dylanologist" A. J. Weberman). If you get past its sardonic hipness and really listen to the song, you get the feeling that this all happened:  he really was used and abused this way, and with his usual who-gives-a-shit honesty he’s going to tell the world exactly what they did to him in those terse, compressed lines that are so characteristic of the most powerful poetry.

Like every other form of writing, poetry is reporting. And Dylan might just be the best reporter who ever lived.

People have argued over who is the “target” of Positively 4^th Street since the song came out in 1965. He recorded it right after his legendary gig at the Newport Folk Festival: you know, the one where he “went electric”, singing two of his ten or so songs with an amplified guitar and a rhythm section. They didn’t just boo him then: they booed him through an entire tour, every time he pulled out that electric guitar. And he kept on singing.

So there were plenty of potential targets for the varnish-stripping Dylan honesty, among them numerous folkie has-beens and never-weres, parasites trying to suck away his vital force as he struggled to be reborn. Some even think it’s about Joan Baez, but frankly, given the way he coat-tailed on her fame in the early ‘60s, she had even more reason to sing that song to HIM. No, I think it’s aimed at that nauseating sycophant and self-styled hipster/flamboyant creep, Richard Farina, a Dylan wanna-be who married  Baez’s 17-year-old sister Mimi strictly to get a piece of the action with Joan.

So let’s get into this one. It has one of those twisty Dylan titles: I Don’t Believe You. But what is it really about? It’s about being cut so dead by someone you like or love that they won’t even acknowledge you’ve met.

Hey, who is this guy.

Are you talking to me?

What? . . . Do I know you?

It’s easily done, you just pick anyone.  Let’s pick someone you HAVE known for years, even had a close relationship with, whether professional or personal.

At some point – well, sometimes it’s just totally baffling. No discernible reason at all, or perhaps things just get a little “thick”, a little less than jolly and easy.

A scum or a fog or a – something – something toxic begins to form.

And you try to clear the air - and you try – and –

It isn’t so much being “ignored” or even having the other person pretend you never have met, which is devastating enough. It’s that sense of – uhh, is there another person in the room? Somebody over there, maybe? Ah, no – nobody there –  (whew).

The opposite of love isn’t hate. It’s indifference. The opposite of acknowledgement is obliviousness. It’s easily done: you just do nothing! Try to call them on it, and all sorts of generic excuses pop up that are meant to be blandly accepted: “Oh! NOW I know why you didn’t answer my email/phone message, you know the one, that message that laid my guts open and made me vulnerable enough to risk everything I had. You didn’t answer me because you were Busy That Day. You were away from your desk.”

No. You were not. Away. From. Your Desk. You made this up on the spot to make it easier for YOU, and if I don’t accept it or if I try to call you on it, I will get some version of “how can you be so cruel? How can you even think of such a thing?”

I can be so cruel as to think, because it is TRUE.

But though it may look like you suddenly shunned me for no reason, it will eventually come to light that there was a reason. You didn’t answer me because I embarrassed you. I embarrassed you because I cared so intensely, and you didn’t. I wanted to know what made things go so wrong between us, to try to understand it or at least get some sort of dialogue going. But you can’t have a dialogue if the other person won’t even acknowledge your existence.

As I get older, I see the real dynamics between people, the way the endless games are played, and it sickens me. I open myself, show my belly, roll all over the floor, longing for someone/anyone to hear me, understand me, or at least live on the same planet as me, and it all echoes back at me as if nobody is there. At. All.

The opposite of love. Dylan almost makes light of this, though not quite. It’s not nice not to be acknowledged. Especially it’s not nice if you’ve gutted yourself in order to be understood, and gotten an indifferent silence in reply. Silence isn’t nice when it’s malignant like that. Nature abhors a vacuum, and the human brain has a tendency to fill it in. And not with the sweetest thoughts.

When people don’t return your phone calls/emails, and it’s happened to me a lot since I decided to fall on my sword by being a novelist, it’s like being stood up on a date. It doesn’t feel nice. The person doing the standing-up should be feeling guilty and bad for letting you down. They don’t. They don’t feel anything. Or they’re busy doing something else, probably having much more fun than they would have had with you. YOU feel bad. YOU feel embarrassed, unacknowledged, dumped. You’re sitting there in a bar or a coffee shop alone, being glanced at, and you feel embarrassed, shamed. You went out of your way. You put your pretty dress on. You told the guy you liked him. Loved him? If you say anything to anyone – but no. THAT truly exposes you as a loser. All you’ll get is pity, or “oh, come on, don’t be so sensitive”.

We must hold our Winner mask in front of our faces at all times. If it drops, we’ll be under attack. Or underacknowledged. Or, perhaps, not even acknowledged at all.

  Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Growing tired of cat grass

(Please note. This is from a site called Sproutpeople.org (link below) that sells seeds for various sprouting things.  I Googled "how to grow cat grass" because my cat loves to eat or at least chew on the ends of grass, and when I grow him a pot of it, it lasts about a week and a half, then dies. Then I have to start all over again, germinating a new pot. I was looking for cat grass with greater longevity, and I came across these astonishing instructions, which I do not expect you to read! Please don't try. But you get the idea. Kitties were never so spoiled as this. It's like starting your own grow-op, in fact, I wish they'd give me instructions for THAT because it would be far more lucrative/worth my time than this. Hey, I'm not dissing this, I'm not. Just saying it's a lot more detailed and intensive than what I'm doing, which is whack some oat grains into a pot of dirt, water it, then wait.)

Home

Growing Cat Grass

Soak 8 - 12 hours
Rinse / Drain 2 times per day
Plant Day 2
Harvest 6 - 10 days

Wheat, Oats, Rye, Barley, Flax

Salad for your all pets! Our special non-puking formula has pleased many thousands of cats and cat people since 1993. It has also pleased rabbits, dogs, guinea pigs, iguanas, turtles and many more of our other-than-human friends.

All of the seeds in Kat Grass come from sources which are certified organic.

GROWING INSTRUCTIONS

How much you soak depends on the area you are planting - see here. Yields approximately as much Grass (by weight) as Grains planted.

Our Instructions and Notes (below) use Purple Text when referring to growing Grass on a medium other then soil.

Pre-Sprout

Grass will grow much better if you sprout it prior to planting!

Put seed* into a bowl or your Sprouter. Add 2-3 times as much cool (60-70°) water. Mix seeds up to assure even water contact for all. Allow seeds to Soak for 8-12 hours.

Empty the seeds into your sprouter if necessary. Drain off the Soak water. Use it to water plants, or whatever you like. It has nutrients in it.

Rinse thoroughly with cool (60-70°) water and Drain thoroughly.

Set anywhere out of direct sunlight and at room temperature (70° is optimal) between Rinses. This is where your sprouts do their growing. We use a counter top - in the corner of our kitchen, but where the sprouter won't get knocked over by cats, dogs, kids or us. We don't mind the indirect sunlight or the 150 watts of incandescent light, because light just does not matter much. A plant can only perform photosynthesiswhen it has leaves. Until then light has little if any effect. Don't hide your sprouts.

Rinse and Drain again in 8-12 hours. And, perhaps one more... Rinse and Drain in 8-12 hours. And, conceivably one more... Rinse and Drain in 8-12 hours.

The goal is to have a just the hint of a Root - or a very short Root before planting. Most of the seeds will have that hint, or have sprouted tiny (1/16 - 1/8 inch) roots after just 1 or 2 Rinse and Drain cycles.

Planting

Thoroughly moisten the soil. Allow puddles to dry. Sometimes you may need to use your fingers to make sure the soil is moist all the way down to the bottom of the tray. Water, mix, water, mix, etc. Sometimes you don't have to do that - it depends mostly on how dry the soil is before you begin moistening it.

Baby Blanket/Tencel: Prepare the pad: Cut it to fit your Tray if necessary. Soak it in water or better yet, Kelp Fertilizer enriched water (You don't NEED fertilizer for Grass, but we sometimes use it when we grow without soil.) until thoroughly saturated (fold it up and push it into the liquid - use a pot or bowl or something similar to hold it). Unfold it and re-fold differently or do whatever makes sense - the goal is to get the pad THOROUHGLY soaked. Spread the wet pad across the bottom of your Planting Tray.Proceed...

Coconut Coir/Vermiculite: Coconut Coir is our all-time favorite medium. It is absolutely lovely to work with! Both Coconut Coir and Vermiculite absorbs liquid so readily and holds it so supremely that you need little of it. We use 3 Cups for an 10 x 10 inch tray and 6 Cups for an 10 x 20 inch tray. If you're using another tray, make it at least 1/4 - 1/2 inch deep. Spray water evenly across the surface then spread it out as evenly as you can. We like to use Kelp Fertilizer enriched water (You don't NEED fertilizer forGrass, but we sometimes use it when we grow without soil.) so we just pour it on until thoroughly saturated and then spread it out. If you are using one of our Tray Sets, you can use the Drip Tray to help. The amount of liquid to use is this: Vermiculite - a little more than one quart for an 10 x 20 inch tray. You don't want more than a little left in the Drip Tray. Pour off what water remains above the ridges of the Drip Tray.
Coconut Coir: Follow the directions on our Coir page or the package. You may mix in 20-25% Earthworm Castings for nitrogen, but Grass doesn't demand it. Proceed...

Spread seeds evenly on thoroughly moistened soil or medium. Rinse your seeds one last time and then sprinkle them across the planting medium. Spread them out as evenly as you can. We use a lot of grain and though some literature will tell you that your seeds should not ever lay atop each other, we have found from years of experience and thousands of Trays of Grass grown that that is bunk! You will learn for yourself that Grass produces a plant that takes up less room than the grain did, and so to maximize your yield your seeds must lay atop each other to some degree. The thing to watch is this: If you find mold or fungal problems in your Grass then lessen the amount of grain you plant. The hotter/more humid your climate is the more of an issue the mold/fungus is. As always, you need to adapt to your own climate and seasonal conditions. And learn as you go - this is really easy and fun stuff to learn! (Note: emphasis mine).

Cover the planted tray with an inverted tray (the Cover Tray) - to keep light out and moisture in. By inverted I mean that the lip of the Cover Tray rests directly on the lip of the Planting Tray - so the bottom of the Cover Tray is facing up.

Note: Your covering tray should have holes or slits in it so that some air circulation exists. Without this very minimal air flow you might have mold or fungal problems.

Place in a low-light, room temperature location. 70° is always optimal but Grass will grow very well in cooler temperatures also.

Watering

Water lightly once or twice a day. The goal is to keep the sprouts moist until their roots bury themselves in the soil/medium - at which point your goal is to keep the soil/medium moist. Spraying the sprouts is best - whether you use a Spray Bottle or sink/faucet sprayer - just try to make sure that every sprout gets rinsed and quenched until they bury their roots. You may also use some Kelp Fertilizer if you like.

Water the medium. Once the roots are buried, all you need to do is keep the medium moist - the seeds and subsequent Grass will get the moisture they need through their roots. Water from the side if possible, to prevent injuring the tender blades.

The Soilless alternative. Baby Blanket and Tencel will dry out more quickly than soil in most circumstances, so you should either water more often or experiment with our somewhat risky trick:

Use the Drip Tray to hold some water. The roots will actually sit in this, so don't go crazy - too much can drown your plants and/or lead to fungal or mold problems. Just leave as much water as the Grass can drink in a day - and then add more the following day. The amount is dependant on the climate (humidity especially) you're growing in, so you'll have to learn this for yourself. We suggest that you start with 1-2 cups in the Drip Tray. Lift the Planting Tray to see how much is left after 4, 8 and 12 hours. If the Drip Tray is dry add more water - if there is still water 24 hours later then cut back the next time you add water. Pretty simple really, and not as risky as we make it sound - it is really a time saver and can produce happier healthy grass. Leaving too much water for too long will lead to funkiness. The roots can go brown, and the smell will be unpleasant. Just keep an eye open and use common sense. Be the plant!

Once again, we do recommend Kelp Fertilizer enriched water for soilless growers. Soil growers may use it too of course, but the soil does have some nutrients already, so it is not nearly as important for you. If you are using Coconut Coir and have added Earthworm Castings you have no need for kelp.

Vermiculite holds water better than anything except Coconut Coir, but the same method works for it: Use the Drip Tray to hold some water. The roots will eventually grow into this, so don't go crazy - too much can drown your plants and/or lead to fungal or mold problems. Just leave as much water as the Grass and Vermiculite or Coconut Coir can drink in a day and then add more the following day. The amount is dependant on the climate (humidity especially) you're growing in, so you'll have to learn this for yourself. We suggest that you start with 1-2 cups in the Drip Tray. Lift the Planting Tray to see how much is left after 4, 8 and 12 hours. If the Drip Tray is dry add more water - if there is still water 24 hours later then cut back the next time you add water. Pretty simple really, and not as risky as we make it sound - it is really a time saver and produces happier healthy Grass. Use Kelp Fertilizer too if you're using Vermiculite, or didn't enrich your Coir with Earthworm Castings. We probably give more water than is necessary, but we end up with great crops and the Grass keeps growing even after we cut it - even if we don't add water daily.

Greening your Grass

Uncover your Grass on day 3, 4 or 5 - or whenever it's 1-2 inches tall. We usually wait until it pushes the covering tray up (it really will do that - it is remarkable!)

Move to a well lit location If you use direct sunlight (a very good idea for Grass) be prepared to do more watering. Every crop needs more watering when grown in a brighter, hotter location. Keep it moist by watering the soil/medium daily. Watch it grow. It takes about 4 or 5 more days to get to....

Harvest

Harvest by cutting the Grass just above the soil/medium when the Grass is 6 or more inches tall (actually height is just a matter of yield - you can cut it any time you want to).

We believe that you will get the best flavor and nutrition from freshly cut Grass. We cut JUST prior to juicing and we feel the difference! But, you are better off juicing week old Grass than no Grass at all, so do what you must! Drink More Juice!

If you are going to store your crop: During the final 8-12 hours minimize the surface moisture of your Grass - it will store best in your refrigerator if it's dry to the touch. So if you water try to keep the water off the plants - just water the soil/medium.

Transfer your crop to a plastic bag or the sealed container of your choice. We offer a great Produce Storage Bag which extends the shelf life of all produce stored within it. Whatever you use, put your crop in your refrigerator. Use it/juice it as soon as possible.

Amount of Seed to Use

If using Sproutpeople's Single Harvest Pack - use the whole bag on our 5 inch tray (or similar).

Or Use: 1/4 - 1/3 Cups Dry Grain for a 5 inch square Tray. 1 - 2 Cups dry grain for an 10 inch square Tray. 2 - 4 Cups dry grain for for an 10 inch x 20 inch Tray.

The surest way to know what amount of seed to use: Spread dry seed on the bottom of your Tray so that the seed is spread evenly but densely.

(Kitty IS, of course, worth all this. But I'm not likely to try it any time soon. Oats in dirt, that will have to do.

P. S. Here is a rather interesting post, Why Do Cats Eat Grass. The whole site is written in similar fashion. I'm not sure what language this was in originally, but it sure is entertaining. Perhaps it's one of those Google translations.)

Why Do Cats Eat Grass? Cats should stand a little on why eating grass. Because you know why your cat eating grass. You may have an idea about whether it is normal or disease.


Some cat owners may be amazed when they see the grass in the garden of the cat ate with great appetite.Animal behavioral scientists have searched for years for the underlying causes of the eating habits of carnivorous cat grass.

Vitamins they receive from herbs they eat cats (folic acid) helps the digestive system. Cats are vomiting after eating a large majority of grass. Remove the ball down when birds would have bothered stomach. Grass eating is also another benefit laxative effect. The intestines from the stomach allows the ball down to the more comfortable excretion. The general belief that they ate grass for cats is sometimes uncomfortable and sometimes stomach that just because they like the taste. Hair pulling the ball independently sore throat, eat grass to vomit sick cats as well.

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