10/07/2021
Ka-BOOM! Seed bombs!
Hey butterfly, bee, and native plant lovers! Many of you have asked how I make seed bombs, so I'll share a recipe. (This recipe is compliments of Adam Bigelow, fellow Wild Ones Western North Carolina member and owner of Bigelow's Botanical Excursions).
3 parts compost
2 parts dry clay*
A sprinkling of native wildflower seed (1/5 of a part)**
* For the clay, kitty liter, the unscented all-clay kind, works, but I've also harvested sub-soil clay from my yard (below the topsoil, where seeds are present) and smashed it up fine and sifted it so it was powdery. You can also buy dry pottery clay at Michael's or other craft stores that works great. If a cat litter is "clumping," it's not pure clay and not suitable for seed bombs.
** Please, please, please look up what plants are native in your area, and ONLY use native seeds.
Mix all of the ingredients really well while dry, and then add water until the mix can be formed into a ball. Place formed seed bombs on a screen or drying rack somewhere they can dry out for a few days, preferably in the sun.
Seed bombs can be planted by placing them in abandoned planters, or tossing or throwing them into meadows. The protective clay/compost covering helps keep the seeds from being eaten by birds and aids in germination and survival of small seedlings.
I like to make these bombs fairly small and then my son and I fill our pockets before going on walks. Seed bombs also make great holiday gifts. Explain to folks that these should be tossed out in wintertime so that the seeds will have a chance to stratify.
I would note: This is definitely a form of trespass for any land or owned by you, but sometimes a little bit of "good trouble" is, in my view, warranted. I do NOT suggest seed bombing a pasture or any cultivated yard or area. But w**d-filled planters in front of an abandoned storefront are fair game! Or an unmown, untended strip of land by an abandoned house. Or ditches, which are owned by the public. Or maybe there's an abandoned house near you with severely neglected flower beds that could use some native plant love?
I also use seed bombs for reseeding wildflower meadows that I'm w**ding, such as Monarch Waystations of Black Mountain. When you pull out w**ds, you disturb the soil and most likely more non-native w**ds will grow there. But toss a seed bomb in there and then you can have native plants grow!
And to counter the argument that "seed bombs don't work," (trust me, if you google it, you will find several posts making this claim), I can say with confidence that the native wildflower seed bombs I dispersed in 2020 worked. Our walks, which were previously lined with grass and non-native plants, now sport the stunning blooms of Joe Pye W**d, Black Eyed Susans, Goldenrod, and other native (to my area) flowers that were not there before!
If you need to source native wildflower seed and you live here in WNC, I recommend Sow True Seed's Flower Seed Mix - SE Native. (I'll put the link in the comments.)
Prairie Moon is also a great source of native seeds, and you can filter the search results by your area so you only see those that are native where you live.
Happy seed bombing, folks! May it result in an explosion of native wildflowers, bees, and butterflies next fall!
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