Seed Bombs

seed bombs

I lucked out. The picture above is the Christmas present I chose last night during a little holiday gift exchange with friends. It was "wrapped" in an unpretentious brown paper bag, and had some heft when I picked it up.  I saw an encouraging nod from Phil and decided to go for it.

It was the kind of gift that needs some explanation. First I lifted out that little log. Turns out it's birch, hand-carried from upstate New York. (Slingerlands, to be precise, which happens to be a place I knew in my previous life.) The bark is beautiful, partially peeling and curlicued, in nuanced tones of white and gray, rustic decor with a carved out space to hold a candle.Beneath it was an egg carton, and the egg carton contained...dirt?

"Seed bombs," explained Phil with pride. He made them himself, and the making of them involved a good deal of research and field work.  On the upper lid of the egg box was a list of lovely words, among them: crimson clover, rose clover, farewell to spring, baby blue eyes, blue flax.I was charmed before I even fully understood. It seemed such a suitable ranch present, and something refreshingly handmade, non-commercial, crafted with care.  As Phil explained it further, I could see that there was real passion behind it too.

"The idea is from Masanobu Fukuoka," Phil said. "He's my hero."

I looked him up later. A plant scientist who lived in the mountains of Japan during World War II, Fukuoka was asked to find techniques to increase food production without taking away from land allocated for growing rice, but he sought to work with nature, not to control it. He was concerned early on about the damage humankind was wreaking on the earth.

"If we throw Mother Nature out the window, she comes back in the door with a pitchfork," he said. "As we kill nature, we are killing ourselves, and God incarnate, and the world as well."

The seed bombs he created,  sometimes called seed balls, or earth balls, or biscuits, consist of carefully selected seeds rolled into a growing mixture of clay, compost, and a few other additives that protect the seeds until rain soaks and stimulates them to germinate. Just as you might imagine, they are sown by throwing them.

And they're used to reseed ecosystems, replenish ruined patches of earth, and unleash beauty in a grass-roots, slightly defiant, ungoverned but environmentally appropriate way, whether urban or rural."

I get it," said Monte. "It's horticultural graffiti.""

Good term," said Phil.

Actually, it's often called guerrilla gardening, a term coined in the 1970s when a group of activists began throwing seed bombs in abandoned lots and wastelands of New York City.

So, I have a dozen little seed bombs now, like a dozen little promises, and I'm already thinking of some good spots to fling 'em. Let the grasses grow, let the greening begin. It's a gift that keeps on giving.