Bean and hydroponics: DIY home puppy lawn

Bean lives in a high rise apartment which makes house training difficult. Furthermore, we are also concerned about his vaccine status because he was given his first vaccine by the breeder. Although she probably stored the vaccine appropriately, we will only fully be comfortable with his vaccine after his second dose by the vet. Bean gets out to socialize with known vaccinated dogs but we don't want him on public grass or in dog parks until the second vaccine. 

We started with some puppy pads in a storage bin (turned litter box), and though he was pretty good about using the pads, we worried about confusing him by allowing him to pee on cloth-like surfaces in the home. We decided he needed grass. Though synthetic dog turf exists, we wanted to try real grass to reduce the smell and give him a bit of the outdoors. There are a few commercial services which provide weekly delivery of hydroponic grass (http://www.freshpatch.com/) and though that might have been the easy option, it's certainly not the cheapest. At $25 a plot, we'd be spending an extra $50-100 per month on grass. We looked at sod options at Home Depot, but the sod looked dry and messy and difficult to cut. We worried that the dirt would get everywhere. In any case, sod is not sold year round so it wouldn't be a permanent option. 

Ultimately, we decided to try growing our own hydroponic grass. It's actually incredibly easy, requiring only daily watering, just like any plant. And the results were fantastic!

So what is hydroponics? It's a system of growing plants without soil, using water and sometimes other nutrients. It has been used to grow inexpensive renewable fodder for animal farms and is used in agricultural research. 

Bean in his lawn (he was frolicking so much that all my other pictures of Bean in the lawn are blurry).

Here are the photos of the process (full materials and instructions at the bottom of the page)

Days 1-3 Seeds are starting to sprout

We used an old pitcher covered with cheesecloth. Twice a day (morning and evening), we filled the pitcher all the way, and drained it upside down. It was kept in a dark room. This is day 4.

Day 4 again. On the night of day 4, we removed the cheese cloth, and spread the seedlings out on a seedling tray. The trays were covered with a humidity dome and left in a sunny room. We started our second set of seeds on this day

Germinated seeds spread out, day 4

Close up day 4, we continued to water twice a day using a 'flood and drain' method. We fill the black tray with water enough to cover the seedlings and then pour off most of the water.

Day 5, morning

Day 6, night, you can see the humidity dome we used propped up to the left

Day 8. We stopped watering on the night of Day 7, because it was pretty wet. On the morning of day 8, we took the grass out of the black trays and let it dry on some pee pads (probably will just set it on a cookie cooling rack next time)

Day 8

After it seemed dry enough, we cut the sheet of grass to fit into Bean's indoor potty. We left a layer of pee pad underneath to absorb any extra moisture.

Bean loves the grass!

Instructions:

I came up with my system by slightly altering the instructions from this website describing a DIY fodder system.

http://www.peakprosperity.com/wsidblog/80359/diy-home-fodder-system

Materials: 

- One easily drain-able container (we used a pitcher covered with cheesecloth, but any kind of container would work)

- Grass seeds (we used the cheapest stuff we could find because we did not want any fertilizer or additives that might be toxic; if you find a cheap bag, it's likely just the seeds)

- Household bleach

- One seedling tray with humidity lid

Day 1: 

AM - Add 2-3 cups of grass seeds into container, fill with water, and add 2 tbsp of bleach. This will hypothetically prevent mold issues. Soak in solution for 5-10 mins, then pour water out. Rinse 3 times by filling the container with water and draining. Fill container a final time, and let soak

PM - Drain container and leave draining (we set our pitcher upside down so it will completely drain)

Day 2 - 3: (until the seeds have started to really sprout -- at least an inch)
AM - Fill container with water, drain and leave draining.
PM -  Fill container with water, drain and leave draining.

Day 4:
AM - Fill container with water, drain and leave draining.
PM - Fill container with water and drain. Spread out seedlings in an even layer onto seedling tray. Break up the seedlings (they tend to be clumped together), cover with clear plastic lid. We started our second round of seeds at this point so we'll have a new lawn every 4-5 days)

Day 5-7 (until grass is the desired length):
AM - fill tray with water covering all the seedlings, pour tray carefully until most of the water is poured off.
PM - fill tray with water covering all the seedlings, pour tray carefully until most of the water is poured off.

Day 8: When the grass is the right length, stop watering the grass and leave the dome off the tray. Remove grass carefully and let dry either on a rack or towels.When mostly dry, put in desired container and introduce your puppy!