I have really wanted to make seed bombs and I heard this term not all that long ago, “guerrilla gardening” and I my ears got all sorts of perked up. Basically guerrilla gardening is very similar to yarn bombing but with plants and whatnot rather than crochet or knitted pieces… it’s gardening in places where it might not actually be allowed in an effort to make things better. Flowers might be planted to try and hide an eyesore of a building that has been abandoned or, as The Guerrilla Gardening home page says, “Let’s fight the filth with forks and flowers.” I found myself intrigued. Though I don’t have the skills to save lives or anything like that I can do little things to try and do my part to make the world a better place.
I remember when I was little my grandmother, Mimmie, would sometimes throw out her extra hollyhock seeds some place that needed to be a little bit prettier, like the alley. I mean, the only people that went down the alley were the ones driving the trash trucks and they weren’t exactly there for the scenery, but I still thought it was a nice thing to do. I wonder what those guys thought. Maybe it made them happy to see somebody put some effort into the places most don’t see.
Now this project was initially planned for Earth Day but I got all irritable and I didn’t want to work on this post so I did something else instead! But this applies any time of year and as I was snapping pics I realized it could also make a pretty awesome and really inexpensive teacher’s gift so we’re going from that angle now! Whether you want to gift them or toss them on an abandoned lot these little seed balls, or earth balls, are a fun little gardening project that you can do with the kids!
For this project you will need:
- Seed ball clay 500G goes a long way!
- Compost
- Seeds
Now you need to work with your clay outdoors because breathing this stuff is no bueno.
On a cookie sheet or someplace to neatly work pour out 1 part of clay to 2 parts of compost (that’s to say 1 cup of clay to 2 cups of compost or 1/2 cup of clay to 1 cup of compost, etc.).
Mix with your hands and then add a small amount of water to start working the mixture into a knead-able clay.
It should be similar to crafting clay.
Now you want these guys to be small, marble sized. Apparently a dime is a good reference though mine are a bit too big.
Grab a small wad of clay and gently push your seeds inside.
I’m using a mixture of morning glory seeds that will grow up and around as it’s a vine.
Roll your clay into a ball, again trying to shoot for that dime size. Whoopsie!
It seems each of my seed balls got a bit bigger and bigger. Double whoopsie!
Place your balls someplace warm (but not hot) to dry completely out. I gave mine 3 days.
A good way to store these is to use little favor bags. Cut the picture and/or name of the seeds out and glue onto your bags.
Boom – the perfect way to keep up with your seed balls and remember what’s what!
To turn these into a gift spray paint a $0.77 clay pot with primer and then a bright color of paint. If you can use what you already have in your crafty stash that’s fab and makes for an even less expensive project.
In a program like Word type in your saying and print out. Use a punch to make a hole and cute string or twine to tie to your pot. I went with “Thanks for helping me grow!”
Place your bag of seed balls into the pot (extra points if you want to line the pot with a coffee filter and go ahead and give teach some soil in the bottom of the pot to get going) and you’ve got a fab little gift. In fact, the littles can do just about all of this, except maybe the spray paint.
And if you’re making these to toss out and help flowers grow the bag helps them keep your purse from getting all gross. Now if you happen to see random morning glories around South Texas, you just might know who planted those there! :)
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