Seeds are a very simple and integral part of our food web and ecosystem; as the beginning (or maybe end?) of many plant life cycles, they seem an essential aspect to consider when doing anything to do with growing. Yet in recent years the integrity and variety of many seeds has come under threat (see for example 1,2,3), so that perhaps now more than ever it is important for us to be maintaining the adaptability and resilience of seeds, and through this, the adaptability and resilience of plants and therefore all other life.
This article explores the art of making ‘seedballs’; one of the easiest ways to spread seeds around, which you can do even if you do not have land in which the seeds can grow. It is an ancient technique that has been adapted and refined over time, with a very small number of ingredients, and which can be enjoyed by people of all ages.
What are seed balls?
Seed balls, as the name suggests, are small spheres with seeds inside. They are usually made of a mixture of clay and compost, which is mixed with the seeds and rolled into a ball and left to dry. The result is a hard little ball packed with all the ingredients ready to give the seeds a boost into the first stages of life. The compost provides nutrients, and the clay or other hardening substances give protection until the seeds are ready to burst out.
Seed ball technology has probably been used by humans for thousands of years, and was re-popularised in our own times by Japanese Natural Farming proponent Masanobu Fukuoka (4). Fukuoka recommended using seed balls in order to plant crops over a large area of land without having to previously disturb the land, using what he called ‘No-Till’ farming (5). Fukuoka seems to have had great success with this method on his own farm in Shikoku, Japan (6), and his methods continue to serve as an inspiration to many.
Seeds as weapons?
The fact that the balls are hard also means that they are portable, and as such can be used in aerial seeding (7) or as part of re-wilding or guerilla gardening efforts (8). When used in this way, they are often known as ‘seed bombs’ or, as some guerilla gardeners have called them, ‘hand green-aides’ (9). Though this terminology may be seen as quite violent in tone, as indeed may the idea of ‘guerilla gardeners’, which has been described as a “battle for resources, a battle against scarcity of land, environmental abuse and wasted opportunities” (8), I believe that seed-bombing techniques can be a part of a non-violent and holistic regeneration not only of land but of community.
As Richard Reynolds, author of ‘On Guerilla Gardening’ says,
“By cultivating someone else’s land without their permission, a guerrilla gardener directly confronts the problem through the landscape rather than the person – a strategy which more often than not helps to avoid conflict.” (8)