How To Make Seed Bombs
See the video and photos below on how to make seed bombs for all the details. I've held hands-on workshops where I've taught urban gardeners how to make seed bombs at seed swaps and events in Chicago like a Prince concert (yes, that Prince) and at Macy’s Flower Show. Here's a video demonstrating how I make guerrilla gardening seed bombs really quickly and easily. Please note that in the video I accidentally say morning glory when I meant marigolds. The traditional seed bomb recipe calls for mixing clay, soil or compost, water and seeds.
In my lazy seed bomb recipe, I skip the mixing of ingredients by purchasing a block of potter's clay at the craft store. This is just natural clay that doesn't need a kiln or an oven to dry. It will dry out by itself once exposed to air. Take a pinch of your seed bomb clay in your hand and flatten it out like in the picture above. Next, place a pinch or more of seed bomb soil in the center of your flattened-out piece of clay.
The type of soil you use should not be a big concern. This is a mixture of potting soil mix, seed starting mix and some organic material like coir that I had left over from the previous growing season. Feel free to use compost or any growing medium you have on hand. You don't need anything special because the medium is just there to help keep the seed(s) moist when they are exposed to moisture.
In this example I am using peas for my seed bombs. Seeds that are hard, round, and small work best for this method of making seed bombs because there is little chance of them breaking when you are rolling up your seed bomb. Once you have added soil and seeds to your piece of clay it is time to start rolling it into a ball.
Start making a seed bomb by folding it as if you were making a pierogi, empanada, or wanton. Once you have the seed bomb soil and seeds safely enclosed in the clay start to work them into the shape of a ball with the palms of your hand. Keep rolling the seed bomb ingredients and working them into a ball shape in the palm of your hand.
If you find that some of the soil starts to break through the clay, just keep rolling the ball into your hand and incorporating the soil back in the ball. That's all there is to rolling a seed bomb. Here are two seed bombs that I made. On the right is a seed bomb that I left to dry in the open air on my porch for a couple of days, and on the left, a seed bomb I just rolled.
After you guerrilla garden with your seed bombs in the spot where you want to grow some plants, the clay is washed away by water and moisture, exposing the soil inside and the seed to moisture which helps it germinate. As I mentioned above, the kind of soil here is not very important. You can use cheap potting soil, or expensive seed starting soil, or you can use your own homemade seed starting compost.
The soil inside is only there to help keep the seed(s) inside moist and help with germination. If you use this method of making seed bombs, I would recommend sticking to smaller seeds. Seeds that are round. And seeds with a hard coating so you don't worry about breaking the seeds. However, if you would like to use seeds that are flat or papery it is still possible.
See the seed bomb making video I included above for a trick on how to use seeds like zinnias. There are a lot of recipes and directions for making seed bombs on websites, blogs and garden books. All of them work just fine. This way of making seed bombs works for me because it doesn't require any mixing or water.
