Create a Spooky-licious Cat Salad Bar that’s frightfully easy with colorful water beads
Last updated on March 9th, 2021 at 02:54 pm
Have you ever thought of growing cat grass without soil? here are step-by-step instructions for growing cat grass in water beads for lots of fun at the cat salad bar!
Growing cat grass for your cat is always a fun project whether it’s for an indoor salad bar or an outdoor watering hole. At the Chirpy Cats lair, we like to keep fresh supplies of grass pots, especially when the weather cools down and the cats spend less time in the catio and more time indoors visiting the salad bar. In our Ultimate Guide to Growing Cat Grass, we provided step-by-step instructions for growing cat grass the traditional way with potting soil.
Why not change things up a bit and ditch the dirt for water beads? Yes, you’ve read that right, no soil needed. For this grass project, you will be using water gel beads instead of potting soil to grow your cat grass!
Below is a tutorial on how to grow an eerie haunted cat grass salad bar for Halloween using color water beads. Your kitties will be thrilled with a truly spine-tingling experience. Furry cat ghouls will not be able to resist visiting the grass buffet when you’re done.
This delightfully frightful display of cat grass grown in water gel beads is sure to attract your furry ghouls for a spooky-licious grass treat! Click To TweetHow to grow cat grass with water beads
This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase when clicking a link I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read my full disclosure.
What you will need
- Water gel beads in different colors of your choice. Expands in water and is 100% non-toxic to kids and pets, environment-friendly, and biodegradable. I chose orange and black water beads for a Halloween theme.
- Fishbowl Decorative glass bowls or Square Decorative glass bowls that will display the beauty of the colorful translucence of the beads. These bowls are often used for centerpieces, succulents, candles or potpourri. I got both sets as I also use them for kitty drinking bowls to trick the cats into thinking they’re drinking from human glasses! Who thought I could fool a feline?
- Grass seeds, either Hard Red Wheat Grass (exactly what I use), a blend of wheat, barley, rye, oats and flaxseed or Oat Grass. You should get to learn your cat’s preference.
- Orange floating LED lights (optional) but essential for the overall effect of your haunted house of grass Halloween display.
- Spray bottle filled with water
- Natural items from your garden such as twigs, dried leaves sunflowers, catnip stems, and other grasses for decoration.
Let’s get started!
1. Soak the seeds
Put about half a cup of grass seeds in a bowl and cover with water for about 4 to 6 hours. The pre-soaking helps speed up germination. Rinse them thoroughly after soaking, they’re now ready to be sewn in pots.
2. Soak the water beads in water.
For my tiny 6-inch diameter glass bowl I only needed about a level teaspoon per color. You won’t need much as the beads expand! The beads take 6 hours to expand but I soaked my batches for a full 12 hours or more, just to be sure they’ve reached their full expansion capacity!
3. Prepare the glass bowls
After the water beads have fully expanded they’re ready to be layered into the glass bowls. But first, if you feel that your glass bowls need a bit of weight, line the bottom with a few river stones. This will make the bowls bottom-heavy and less likely to be knocked around by over-zealous paws. My square bowls didn’t require this reinforcement as they are quite heavy. Layer the black beads at the bottom to just below halfway, then layer the orange beads on top, leaving a space of about 0.75 inches.
4. Sprinkle the grass seeds directly over the water beads evenly. Spray the surface and cover the bowls with a dampened dishcloth and place in a dark corner out of sunlight. For the next two days ensure that the seeds are kept moist by spraying two to three times per day and keeping covered. Watch for any mold; if mold is forming uncover the bowls to dry it out a little.
5. Let there be light!
After about two days when the seeds have roots and green upright sprouts have emerged, you can now place your grass bowls in a bright or sunny spot. Beware of cats snooping around the plant! Our two “Yoots” Baggy and Ollie looked so innocent all cuddled together in a ball before bedtime and I thought, “What harm can they really do.” They sure fooled me when the next morning I found the grass uprooted and little orange jelly balls over the windowsill! Yes, boys will be boys!
For five days straight we had rainy weather so my little grass blades were not as lush as expected but they still turned out great. You will notice in the above photo that grass in the bowl on the left is slightly shorter. That’s because I experimented with sprinkling the seeds on a moistened piece of paper towel as a barrier to prevent the seeds from falling too deep between the gel beads. The results speak for themselves so it’s better to sow the grass seeds directly on top of the water beads, as I did on the right.
A Fall Harvest Halloween cat grass salad bar display
Now that the grass is green don’t delay setting up the salad bar. The cats have been waiting long enough!
Dress it up with twigs, leaves and dried sunflowers, all non-toxic to cats. For extra fun, I added some vine sticks in a tiny pale that the cats enjoyed fishing out with their paws. For the backdrop display, I used dried catnip stalks to mimic the trunks of tall trees. If you followed my tutorial on How to Grow Catnip from Seed, hopefully by now you have a plentiful catnip harvest and some very happy cats.
I grabbed some tall stems of Calamagrostis feather reed grass from our garden and filled up space in the backdrop. This grass is also interesting as a fishing rod-like toy. So after all the photo shoots were done, the Chirpies had a good interactive play session with a few of these grass stems. Most items on your Fall Harvest Salad Bar are not only safe for your cat but inexpensive and functional too!
Arrange your orange LED lights behind the glass pots, in between your display items to get the perfect haunted glow.
When nightfall comes, beware the grisly cat ghouls!
To attract your nighttime furry ghouls to feast on the Haunted House of Cat Grass salad bar, you have to rearrange the angles of light for an eerier dramatic effect. Place the LED orange lights in various places and add more lights under leaves to get that haunted look just right! You may add any other scary props such as skulls, spiders, bats, go nuts!
Wait and watch your curious furry ghouls come out to play.
Would you like to see these furry phantoms in action? Watch below with the volume up for the full spine-chilling effect 🙂
I hope you get to try out growing cat grass using water beads. They are so versatile and can be used for any occasion, or setting. Experiment with different props and bead colors for different seasons. Get the kids involved for a wonderful exercise in cat enrichment and human-cat bonding. Not only will your kids learn about the importance of creating fun spaces for cats but it’s also a hands-on tutorial using non-toxic, mostly natural items from the garden!
Our furry phantoms of the night were entertained for hours at the Haunted House of Grass and thought it was one big pawty!
If you liked this tutorial, check out our Festive Fountain Display tutorial using red and white water beads with the Swan fountain
Follow our stories and inspiring DIY cat hacks on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest
For more inspiring ways to your cat’s heart, join our newsletter to stay updated on catnip chirps, enrichment ideas, reviews and giveaways!
Like this? Pin it!
Wow, who knew you could grow kitty greens that way! How cool! You could change it up for every season/holiday!
Absolutely, that’s why we love water beads as they’re so versatile and can be used for any season!
We really like this idea! Now, with winter coming, I’d like my fresh greens indoors, thank you, hehe – Tom x
Yes!!! Winter is coming!! Eek! If it’s anything like here, it’s cold with lots of snow! But nothing can stop you from having your greens indoors.
That’s amazing! It should be in a magazine. I have no time for crafts but have a bag of chia seeds. Have you made anything with those?
Oh now there’s an idea…. chia seeds. I’ve only ever used them in my smoothies. That’s worth a try, I’m sure there’d be one cat that will have a taste for that!
That’s really cool ! What a great idea ! The result is amazing ! Purrs
Thank you, it was a whole lot of fun to do 😉
This might actually work for us. We don’t grow grass now because some cat is always getting the dirt all over. But with this there is no dirt!
It’s so clean and definitely beats getting your hands or kitties’ paws dirty! I hope you get to try it!
We didn’t know how to do that either but it’s as pretty as it is yummy!
We hope you get to try something like this. The kitties were so excited for a display all of their own.
That is such a cool project, and your photos are stunning!
Thank you! It was soooo much fun to do especially setting it up. The cats were so curious about the whole thing MOL
Oh Chirpies, that is a spooky delight of grassy noms and glowing needs! Mom and I luv this, and we thinks it’s one of the best ideas for a pussycat furr-iendly Halloween and fall scene! You always have grr-eat tutorials! And ooh, I luv the cat ghostly visitors to the pots after dark. I’m making a shopping list for Mom right now, so I can put together my own spooky garden! Winks and kisses.
Thank you and I’m so glad you and Mom like it! The spooky furry souls roam around every night. They have also now realized that the tall dried “trees” are catnip stems! I hope I get to see your spooky creation once done! xx
Whoops, my comment should’ve read “glowing needs.” Mom made type. Tee hee hee.
Okay … now that is REALLY cool! You always have the most amazing ideas!
Thank you 🙂 It’s amazing what these seeds can grow in. I hope you do try it out. use different colors for holiday! xx
That is cool. I was not familiar with these beads.
They’re really cool and shrink back to their normal size when dried out. You can reuse them again
That is so cool! And it sounds like one DIY project that I could actually do, MOL!
heh heh! If you do I would love to see photos! And just keep the project high up where your chatty five won’t be able to reach while it’s growing! MOL
Ahhh this recipe is too cute :D. I love the water beads and seeds look, even without the grass.
Gonna try and make this with my BFF for Halloween next weekend!
Thanks for pouncing over to our blog. Doing crafts with water beads is so much fun!
Super cool! I definitely want to try different colors for all the seasons. I envision a tiny Christmas village being attacked by a giant space cat…
Thanks! It’s really fun, and yes! you get the idea MOL! 🙂
Great idea for Halloween. Spooky. Thanks for adding the How to do it too.
Thank you, and you’re most welcome! I hope you get to try it out for your kits! 🙂
This is so cool! You are so creative! I tried to grow cat grass once and it died. I think I have a brown thumb!
Oh no! You should try again, but bear in mind when grown indoors it doesn’t last that long anyway.
I love this! What a fun and creative way to make a cat grass garden. I’ve only grown cat grass once before, but cats loved it. I should try it again! Thanks for the inspiration 🙂
Oh wow! This is a fantastic idea! I actually don’t give my cats any greens besides the occasional time I buy some grass from the pet store. I really like how it could be very decorative and complement your home’s interior design. Thanks for the enjoyable read! Looks like your cat overlords are rather pleased hahaha!
Do the water beads pose a choking hazard for cats? Our little one tries to eat anything and everything he finds. Worried he might accidentally choke on them.
Hi there, thank for pouncing by! Water beads are non-toxic and environmentally friendly, but I have read elsewhere that they may pose a choking hazard for kids trying to eat them as they look like candies. Now when they have expanded they are generally squishy, soft and difficult to grip. I’ve watched my cat’s try to bat the beads and watch as they roll around and bounce, but they are unable to grab them. NOTE: I don’t let me cat’s play with the beads, but sometimes when filling the grass vases the beads fall on the floor and bounce all over the place!
If your cat has pica (eating non-edible items) then I would practice caution and make sure the beads don’t fall out. Use a solid and sturdy glass vase. As you can see here, I fill my vases with rocks at the bottom to make them heavy so they can’t fall over. Another tip to ensure that the beads stay put is to use the grow mats as I have done for my Festive watering hole project. The grow mats are placed on top of the beads, then the seeds are sprinkled over the grow mat.
If you have any other questions I would be glad to help! 🙂
Do you have to completely redo The Who process when the grass starts to die in like 2 weeks or can you just pull out the bad grass and add new seeds?
Hi Danny! No, you can totally just pull out the bad grass. You will find that the roots will have grown into the top layer of beads, which you can still salvage by just rinsing the beads. If there are any moldy ones, just throw those out. Sometimes depending on how dry your conditions are, the beads will have shrunk somewhat. In that case I just rehydrate them again by filling it with water until they plump up again. But yes, new seeds can be sewn on top of the beads without having to start again.