How To Articles

How to Make Seed Balls

WHAT ARE SEED BALLS?

Seed balls are one-half inch diameter models of the living world containing all the seeds for a complete habitat, wild or domestic garden, or both in one. Hundreds of kinds of seeds, soil humus, dry soil from your landscape and sand form the solid components of seed balls. When mixed with water and rolled into balls, they become little adobe gardens. They are cost effective, hundreds of times faster to apply and can be made by anyone anywhere in the world where there is soil and seed.

HOW TO MAKE THEM

Step 1: Gather your materials

• 3 parts dry humus, from compost with live mycorrhizal fungi soil inoculates
• 1 part dry mixed seeds, assortment of all desired native plants
• 5 parts soil from your landscape, dried and sifted
• 1 to 2 parts dry fine sand, cleaned and sifted (if clay does not have a little sand)
• 1 to 2 parts water
  

Step 2:. Sift dry soil through a sifter to eliminate lumps.

Step 3: Measure out one part seeds to three parts of compost to five parts of soil. Thoroughly stir the seeds in a large container, cover with dry soil humus from compost, then add dry soil and mix well. If local soil does not have a little sand in it, you may want to add some aggregate strength sand. Add water gradually until a firm, suitable consistency is reached for rolling the soil into half-inch diameter balls.

Step 4: Pinch off wet soil from the main mass and roll between the palms of the hands until smooth and round. After a few seconds the soil can be felt to set up or organize, as the tiny clay platelets align themselves to each other and seeds as they enclose. It is important to roll the balls until this polymerization is felt, for then the ball will dry with structural integrity. Finished seed balls must dry undisturbed for approximately 24 hours.

Step 5: Once they are dry, seed balls may be stored in a cool, dry place or they may be broadcast immediately after drying and allowed to lay dormant in place until released by rain. SEED BALLS DO NOT NEED TO BE BURIED OR WATERED. Seed balls are perfectly content to simply lay about "sleeping" until the right amount of rain falls. When rains come, no matter where a seed ball has landed, something from the mix inside will be at home on the spot, so all possible habitat bases are covered in one broadcast application.

Step 6: Protected from predatory insects, rodents, birds and other animals, seed balls lie dormant until sufficient rains fall to start their germination. Then hundreds of sprouts explode from each ball as they eagerly reach for the sun. Enjoy your wildflower garden and use seed balls for future wildflower planting.

HOW MANY TO APPLY

A minimum application seeks a scatter density of at least 10 seed balls per square meter. Adequate coverage requires at least .2 grams of seeds per seed ball, or 2 grams of seeds per square meter. Restoration requires at least 3 grams of seeds per square meter. Between 8 and 12 kilograms, or 20 to 30 pounds of mixed seeds are required per acre.

WORD OF CAUTION

You roll all the forces of nature into seed balls when you make them, they have tremendous regenerative powers and they can be of great benefit. But used carelessly or wantonly, seed balls can cause irreparable biological disruption by effectively introducing alien species into a habitat with no means of coping with rampant invaders. The world is already host to numerous incidents of introduced exotic species that have radically altered native landscapes everywhere. Be careful of which seeds you choose and where you scatter them. We strongly recommend using only native species.

Photography by In Churl Yo. Text by Jessica Tipple and Andrea Delong-Amaya. This step-by-step was adapted from Wildflower magazine.