Finally, Some Seed Bombs!

I seriously regret not getting this done back in November before the rains, but oh well. If anyone's curious a seed bomb is a pellet (or other fun shape) usually made of clay, compost and seeds. You can toss them into vacant/abandoned lots and other places that have been left to weeds and hopefully the seeds will germinate and prettify the landscape. Wish I'd known about this technique years ago, there are a few long time vacant commercial lots I'd always wanted to scatter seeds in, but didn't want to hop the fence and couldn't figure out how to toss the seed any distance. Mixing it with compost and clay solves the fence and distance problems.

You can find lots of different recipes on seed bombs at Guerillagardening.org, here and here :)

Last weekend I got together with Jean and we finally made them!

my conspirator, accomplice, partner! Jean and the flats we put the seed bombs in to dry out :)

 and some of our finished seed bombs

 (mine on left, Jean's on right)

As you can see, Jean wore gloves. I did not. Here soil balls came out much smoother than mine did (and she did not suffer so much from little bits of twig/stick in the compost poking her hands). I don't know if that will make a difference in the final product.

 I had printed up several recipes I found on how to make them which we basically ended up not using :9 We broke up clay from the soil in my yard into little bits. Then accidentally added an equal amount of compost from Jean's bin instead of 5:1 clay to compost most recipes were recommending. But it was actually holding together well and easily shaped. So then we said screw it let's do it this way and dumped in the California wildflowers seed large packet (it was probably around 14 grams like the B.I. large packets). Then we just rolled them into little balls. Simple.

We set them in two nursery flats Jean had to dry, I took one back home to my place. I don't think we really need to wait for them to dry out, they were holding together well and should fly over fields with ease. We did a second small batch with cosmo, marigold and.... I forget what other flowers :9 Jean help!

 The green bucket in the pics that looks full of dirt - that's not dirt. That's the 3 gallons of clay I dug up from the front border of my yard. I am glad that is out of the ground and I have space to mix in some nice compost (and maybe my border will grow in properly this year).

It really didn't take much in the way of raw materials. The green bucket with clay was filled to the brim when we started and you can see in the last pic we used very little of it, and add to that equal compost, then seeds. I think we each have about...4 or 5 dozen seed bombs. So simple. Why didn't we figure this out sooner?!

So this weekend I will be riding the neighborhood and going after the huge parking lot/dirt plot of the former Malibu Castle... mwuahahaha

THANKS JEAN!!! :) We must do this again.

Upcoming Plans

Hello,

So I've returned to the country after a holiday trip, and my evening class is over, and many other distractions are taken care of... Now I think I'm officially back from hiatus :)

Been spending time thinking about how best to keep myself on track in different areas of my life. As far gardening here's my overall plan to get on track:

• Bulletin Board - calendar, LA monthly planting guides, monthly garden to-do list, booklist, visit wish list.
• Garden - use the darn bulletin board to keep up to date on projects and garden chores.
• Learning - try to read a new garden book a month, and visit at least one new garden related place or meet with other gardeners.
• Budget - I started a new 2011 budget for myself. I want to keep track especially of my garden expenses vs. returns.
• Blog - use bulletin board info for a monthly overall plan entry and help keep up with entries, also to berate self in sticking to my to-do list.

So here's what I've I'm hoping to accomplish as far as projects for the January:

1. Make a cool bulletin board - using stuff I have and possible from dollar or thrift shop if I need to.
2. Make a second composting container (oh that's right, I've finally got one going - more on that later)
3. Build a pot trellis for John.
4. Make seed bombs with Jean
5. Build two LED Grow Boxes
6. Get my spring Green Babies sowed!

 This weekend's focus will be on numbers 4, 5 & 6. I think 1 through 3 will come next weekend. Hmmm, I think I've started my list off a bit backwards....meh.

Here's a preview of my plot.... uh, plan that is for numba 3:

Just Another Gopher Moment

Go-For, actually. At my office job I end p doing all sorts of tasks and errands. This week that included stopping in at the Building & Safety Department of Rancho Palos Verdes. Now that it's stopped raining and I'm not clenching the wheel of my car in fear of on-coming traffic in 50ft fog visibility... it's quite a nice view. Couldn't help taking some personal time for a short walk on the South Spur Trail.

to the south that's Santa Catalina Island where the buffalo roam in the distance 

a view north from behind city hall buildings, there's the Santa Monica Bay and waaaay over thar is Malibu

looking southwest there's point San Vicente Lighthouse

 believe it or not that's the gorgeous view of Catalina from the lightly used parking lot to the senior center

 

see all that brownish gray out there?

that's dried out fennel or dill...probly fennel...which is considered invasive along the trails here

On the way back to work I pulled over at scenic view on Hawthorne Blvd for these:

 there's looking southwest towards San Pedro...

All in all, a nice morning break from my work week :)