Are you a hippie? Want to force people to look at flowers? Make some seed bombs. These tiny little bomblets contain clay and seeds and you basically drop them on the ground and they germinate, spread flowers and good cheer all over the abandoned brownfields near the river.
Here’s the recipe:
5 parts dry red clay*
3 parts dry organic compost
1 part seed**
1 – 2 parts waterWe used a 16oz. plastic cup as a measure, which made enough for approximately 300 seedballs. After mixing together all the dry ingredients, we added enough water to form a mix that held together without crumbling but wasn’t so wet that it wouldn’t roll into balls. Pinching off small bits of the lovely mud, we rolled penny-sized balls and set them in trays. They will sit on my windowsill for three or four days until completely dry.
Get rollin’, people. Mother Earth needs us.
odd… I suddenly have a craving for Cocoa Puffs…
I was about to say the same thing…
Can we get some DIYers to help us design a rotating bucket? (Because I’m not too sure on how green this process would be if we used a cement mixer)… place the dry stuff there and while tumbling use a spray to make the greenbombs!!! You could very well make them by the thousands this way!
thank you for the recepy, I have been collecting seeds from wild plants, especally in autum you can just pick them easily.
Here in Cologne we have a few places which are called “Brache”, they are left without care so they became nice wild oecosystems with native plants.
Now I know how to spread them seeds around without beeing picked by birds ore moved away from the wind. I would like to open a list of wellworking seeds and of course pics to see the results.
Very nice are the seeds of common flax or linseed (Linum usitatissimum) They come as nice blue flowers and as far as I know will multipy next the year.
guten Tag
Paula
Cut a small hole in your pocket,close it with a bow tied string, walk slowly among some dog walkers, pull the string to freak them out! Daisies are nice this time of year, but carrots are fun too!
Come on hippies, make and spread “bombs;” let’s see how long you enjoy your freedom.
Can’t wait till all you flower children die off and take your failed socialistic views with you.
I be sure to drop some seed bombs on your graves (after my dog pisses on you first).
O.K., so I’m not a hippie, I am a conservative, but I just don’t understand why people can be so angry over something as innocent as planting seeds. Lighten up, the planet needs to be a little greener anyway.
Grow up, people are trying to make the place where they live better. How is that socialist? Do something instead of criticizing others, and don’t let your dog piss on graves.
isnt it amazing how flowers just PISS OFF some people?
Amazing, and _quite_ amusing.
And yes, please, seed bombs on my grave is a great idea. Hope you’ll have to wait a while to do so, but what a nice thought. And since I’ll be very dead, it wont matter at all to me where your dog pisses.
What a silly person.
Make “weed bombs” OVERGROW the world!!!
Another great kid- friendly activity your readers would enjoy is to grow a TickleMe Plant from seeds and then watching the plant MOVE when Tickled! As a first grade teacher I no longer plant Lima beans, as the growing of this interactive plant, proved to be much more exciting and educational for my student’s.
I found my supplies for a classroom kit at http://www.ticklemeplant.com but they also sell individual greenhouses with everything you need to grow your own TickleMe Plant from seeds. I assure you your kids will be more excited about gardening, and its just fun to watch the expressions of the faces of children (and even adults) when they see the plant close its leaves and droop when tickled,
Forcing ones philosophy on others is wrong regardless of intent.
Plants native to an area will grow whether you plant “seed bombs” or not and the planting of non-indigenous plants no matter how attractive or harmless they may appear can sometimes have devastating effects on the existing ecosystem.
So before you go flinging seed bombs in the nearest McMansion neighborhood yards, I’d suggest you sit back and consider how you’d appreciate them coming into your yard and tossing a molotov cocktail of pesticides.
Besides, no matter how hard you may try to show 3 SUV owning John Doe how lovely flowers growing on his highly manicured lawn can be, chances are you’ll most likely end up disappointed when he plows over them with his 24 horse powered Cub Cadet riding mower.
Don’t you have something better to do with your time?
No one suggested throwing them into people’s yards. Jesus Christ.
FYI-
there are no “abandoned brown fields near the river”. You can rest assured in knowing that if it isn’t private property, it’s owned by the state and neither state nor private owners want trespassers randomly planting things.
Don’t get me wrong, the world is far from being green enough. I live on 8 acres of Ozark mountains and am surrounded by hundreds of pristine forests. My “yard” consists of a variety of native grasses, trees and brush and I’d be most upset if someone drove by and tossed seed bombs of any kind.
If you’re going to practice this “seed bombing” of property other than your own, I’d highly suggest you do your research. If you think people with good intentions can’t screw things up, just contact your state wildlife management agency and ask them to share the poor judgment horror stories.
It’s kind of un-hippyish to want to force your ideas on someone…
Makes me wonder though if these things work.
The balls are a bit wet when you start and the seeds must begin to grow, surely? then when thrown, the roots may not be in the ground so the flowers would just die.
And yes, make sure you’re not planting weeds in a pristine area, any plant not in it’s right place could be called a weed.
Americans love to talk about growing Ivy, Morning Glory and Lantana, but tell that to an Australian and they’d be horrified.
And that includes the “Tickle Me” plant which is Mimosa Pudica, The Sensitive Plant. Also considered a noxious week in Australia and possibly in other tropical regions.
Wolfie!
PLEASE USE NATIVE SEEDS ONLY!!!
WE DO NOT NEED ANYMORE INVASIVE PLANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Invasive plants are just fine, as long as they’re edible. Yum!
You don’t eat ‘flowers’. You smoke them.
I am going to do this with my kids, such a great way to teach them how to be green and have fun at the same time.
yes! I live in alabama. red clay is EVERYWHERE.
definitley doing this.
Sorry to rain on the “green parade”, but Mr. JR is right: we don’t need more invasive species, even on so-called “brownfield plots.” Please choose your seed species carefully.
Invasive plant species are a very real and SERIOUS problem throughout the Western Hemisphere and Oceania. Where I live (Maui, Hawai’i), more than 40 percent of all “wild” plant species are classified as “weeds” and invasives. These trespassers out-compete native and indigenous species so effectively because they propagate quickly and create a desolate “monochromatic” landscape that eliminates the natural, biologically diverse balance of a patch of ground.
Unfortunately, here in Hawai’i most of the attractive flowering plants are invasive species that entrepreneurs and private gardeners have introduced as ornamental species; these plants escaped (easy-peasie for any plant worth its seedpods)and went nuts in the warm climate and fertile volcanic soils of the Islands.
If you MUST be a seed bomber, do some research beforehand and spread only native, naturalized, or indigenous seed species. Malama aina!
i have eco-friends that have “bombed” the gene laced fields of corn in hawaii with these. they work well in planting things where you can’t go but can throw. Just throw it and watch it grow. Disruption is not a bad thing.
And yes it was researched for native species. it is important to know what you are doing before you act.
I agree with Ray, but the only thing I would ever put in these “bombs” would be marijuana… And I would never introduce a species to an area that didn’t already support its existence.
Ecosystems are fragile but adaptive. But not so adaptive as to be able to keep up with our current rate of contamination… Something radical will happen soon. I’m not a religious person, but looking at the direction in which things are moving, I don’t see much hope.
Depressive Realism.
I agree with Ray, but the only thing I would ever put in these “bombs” would be marijuana… And I would never introduce a species to an area that didn’t already support its existence.
Ecosystems are fragile but adaptive. But not so adaptive as to be able to keep up with our current rate of contamination… Something radical will happen soon. I’m not a religious person, but looking at the direction in which things are moving, I don’t see much hope. Many things will die. It will be known at another great extinction…
Mankind has been walking the earth for hundreds of thousands of years… Right? What was the stumbling stone upon which we learned technology? Or better, the accumulation of knowledge? Why do our minds accumulate knowledge? Because it’s beneficial. Of course! At every step, we gain or lose… Life is built on averages. There’s always a new bar. Set above the last. We’re nothing more than one successful chemical reaction causing the next.
Depressive Realism.
If we really care about the earth we need to think about what we plant and where we plant it. This type of planting, although on the surface looks as if it is a positive thing, can be very dangerous. Ecosystems are very fragile and planting hoards of non-native species by this manner creates unnatural imbalances. In other words invasive species could easily be spread by doing this. And above all remember that most the plants that we all think are beautiful were not meant to be spread across the entire world. They should be beautiful in the land that they originate in. Otherwise we get problems like that of Kudzu, Japanese bush honeysuckle, winter creeper and many other countless invasive problems. Please before you plant anything think of the Ecosystem and how that plant might spread. It is more important than you might think.
Are humans not an invasive species then?
Interesting. Someone could potentially use this idea for harm by creating Kudzu Bombs… which would then grow out of control, completely decimating the indigenous vegetation within a few years.
Scary.
Buzz kill
There certainly is an uproar over planting native species. While I agree that is best, look around at what’s going on in your local farms and botanical gardens. Native? Not quite.
i have no negative intentions or wish do argue merely to share opinions…just because the local farms and botanical gardens do not solely germinate native species, just because others do “wrong”, doesn’t mean it justifies another to do it as well.
I’d love to do this with hemp seed. People need to learn not to fear it.
Sadly the Asian world of investment capitalists have turned on the great, lovable, but unsustainable, American Neanderthals, and the South Azadegan Oil Fields of Iran have been sold to China! Robbing him of fuel for his unsustainable follies. Due to this reversal, we must plant mostly edibles in our seed bombing efforts, to feed the starving urban masses of American Neanderthals about to be disenfranchised by their own capitalists, who went seeking loans from Asia, China to be specific, but Obama’s overtures for Trillions on loans were turned down,. The need however, remains! Plant food stuffs, everywhere possible in America , they will need food, far sooner than the world suspects, as crowds of unemployables in this computer age, grow there, and the American dollar sinks like a stone on world markets, hardly able now to buy a Canadian dollar! Soon to fall much further! God help our Great, lovable, American Neanderthals, looking like deer in the headlights soon, but looking away in pride, disgruntled egoism, disbelief right now! Plant Food not Lawns! Help Yourself over your own expanded propagandized ego big fellow! Many of you, now disenfranchised from the “System”, sick and dying, without fair medical care, will vouch for my statements, and back my patter with credible experiences! Ask Them! Then plant food for them!
be a vessel for Jah almighty amen brother! Just wanted to add plant native foods, not only because of the problem of infestation but also I would assume that doing so would ensure your “bombs” would have more of a change of continuing on in multiple generations. thanks to all participating in this, and keeping in mind the balance and the respect necessary to both nature and our fellow creatures!