Now that we’re getting into summer in Maine, all my seed starting has paid off and there’s plenty growing in my container gardens. There’s also plenty growing around the property in all it’s lush and wild glory.
While we won’t be breaking ground in the wild areas around this house for a couple of years, I wanted to give seed bombs a try to see what might come of them. Despite the name, seed bombs are a fun way to add some color to sad looking plots in urban areas. Most people toss them into abandoned lots or road medians to provide some refuge for pollinators and to beautify the places they live.
In my case, I’m trying an experiment off the back of our homestead to see if I can get some random pumpkins or sunflowers to break through the small saplings and scrub brush.
For seed bombs all you need is clay (bought from a herb store or garden store or if you’re “lucky” enough to have some on your property, that works too!), compost, water and your choice of seeds. There’s a science to the ratios of the mixture but I just added wet or dry as I needed it. I set aside the seeds I wanted to use in a small dish so I could add as I went and made golf ball sized bombs. I saved some seed packets for next year and when I ran out, I used red clover seeds as a filler.
Once I ran out of clay and seeds to used, I let the balls air dry for a day and a half. We had some warmer days and after letting them dry, the red clover seeds started to germinate and break some of the balls apart. It’s probably a good sign and I hope that means they’ll have no issue in the back yard.
Off the back ledge they went~ Other than the burst red clover balls the majority of the balls remained intact and held together in the air. I couldn’t tell what I was throwing where but I tried to space them out as I worked through them. I’m hoping to see some strong sunflowers and cute little pumpkins sprouting in the next couple of weeks.