Friday, April 15, 2011

creative friday!

It's friday again...I am pretty done being mom this week I have to admit. We are all coming off of being sick and everyone is just cranky. And cranky for my boys equals running around like lunatics who are deaf. So yeah I am just done. But the sun is shinning and we can play in the garden a bit so it is getting better....

This week we made seed bombs. I am participating in the creation of a town nursery here in Beacon. The goal is to make a space that is a combination mini botanic gardens and tree farm for the town to use to replenish after storms damage existing trees in the parks etc. We are in the early early stages but have a great group working on it. The head of the group is Richie Cabo who is also the horticulturalist in charge of the NYC parks and rec tree nursery so I have great hopes that this project will be a huge success. Anyway when thinking about fundraising I immediately thought about seed bomb packets for participants in our clean up days as well as a small thank you for donations, somehow this idea turned into me making a million seed bombs at my kitchen table....

I have no pictures as our camera is gone (like lost on the highway gone) but this is how we made the seed bombs:

materials needed:
seeds
clay
compost

We used clay that we dug out of the yard but I have heard you can also use air dry clay from like crayola. The clay is really just to insulate the seeds from birds and to create a stable packaging. We also used seed packs that were sun and shade growers, as well as a mix of annuals and perennials. I tried to get seeds that were semi native so they would not overtake everything else when used. One seed packet made roughly 50 seed bombs. We also used compost that I had purchased from the Green Market in Union square, the bag was 1 lb and the 150 seed bombs used roughly 1/4 of that.

how to:
first get the clay wet enough that it is workable, but not so wet that it is goopy.
Mix in a little compost
Mix in your seeds
Now grab a little chunk of the mixture and roll it into a ball in the palm of your hand (like making a play doh ball)
Then roll the ball into a little more compost just to coat the clay
Let dry and that's it! Now you can toss them into any bare patch around town for a little flower patch!

Ours look like little chocolate truffles- like they were coated in oreo cookie crumbs! We made about 150 or so and they range in size but they are all less then an inch in diameter. The total cost of this project was about $4 , and that was only because I had to buy the compost. I don't recall how much the compost was but I think it was about 5 bucks for a lb. The seeds were 20 cents to $1 a packet and we used 3 and the clay was free from the yard.

4 comments:

no spring chicken said...

What a great idea! I will have to try that with my kids.
Thanks,
Debbie

Anonymous said...

this is awesome. maybe you can start a community chicken coop somehow...? :)
-alana

K said...

I am very fond of your style, kiddo. Writing style. And very sorry that your camera hit the road. That would about do me in. Funny - gorilla gardening. Not a bad idea.

regina said...

alana- when you commented on fb about your community chicks i totally went "ohhhhhhh"

k- thanks! it would do you in cause your photos are amazing! um hello daffodils and that horse? oh that horse!
I am obsessed with the guerilla gardening in nyc and friends gifted me some lovely bombs before we left which was the inspiration for this- then Richie told me about a book about this guy who quits his high powered job and goes to china? japan i dont remember and uses seed bombs to plant rice for people, he is big into no till gardening. of course i can't remember name of said book now, but anyway yeah gardening with no effort! yay!