If you’re ready to take gardening full circle, it’s time to get into seed saving. Collecting seeds from the strongest plants you’ve grown this year helps create a more vigorous crop next season be
Welcome to Modern Agriculture!
An empty lot and a bag of seed bombs: it’s the perfect Christmas gifts for gardeners. These little balls of seeds are easy to toss into neglected areas, creating tiny wildlife habitats for bees, birds, and butterflies. They also make great garden starter kits for those who are new to gardening.
What is a seed bomb? It’s a ball of compost and seeds stuck together with clay. While seeds have their own little stash of nutrients inside them, placing them in a nutrient-rich seed bomb gives them an even better head start. These balls of seeds have historically been tools for guerilla gardeners who want to toss a bit of future colour into neglected urban lots, but they’re great as compact stocking stuffers for gardeners as well.
There are as many ways to make seed bombs as there are recipes for Christmas cake. The most common recipe is as follows:
Place the compost and seeds into a bowl, and add your clay slowly, mixing it as you go. Add water until your mixture has the consistency of very thick, somewhat chunky dough. Roll the clay into balls that are 2 to 3 centimetres wide, and place them on a windowsill to dry for several days. When you toss the seeds onto the ground, the clay will slowly break down in the damp and the seeds will start to grow.
Traditionally, seed bombs contain wildflower seed mixes, although you can create a garden-in-a-ball out of other small seeds as well. How about some Asian greens for early spring gardening?
Wrap your seed bombs, take a piece of brown paper and wrap it around one or several seed bombs as if you were wrapping a small, round chocolate. Tie it at the top with colorful raffia, and you have a seed bomb that’s lovely to plant and a package that’s perfect fodder for the compost.
If you’re ready to take gardening full circle, it’s time to get into seed saving. Collecting seeds from the strongest plants you’ve grown this year helps create a more vigorous crop next season be
Start seeds at the right time You have the seed starting mix, growing trays and ordered packets of seed — now are you wondering exactly when to start seeds indoors? Getting the timing right can make the difference between plants that lanquish and those that thrive. Planted too early or too late, seeds can rot or young plants may struggle to get established. Start by finding the last expected frost date for your area. From there count back the appropriate number of days or weeks and you
Get more plants and save money by starting your own Ive been gardening and writing about gardening for more than 20 years, yet I find Im always learning new things about the plants, insects and other critters that call my backyard home. Thats the great thing about gardening — its never boring! Ive worked as a landscaper, on an organic farm, as a research technician in a plant pathology lab and ran a small cut-flower business, all of which inform my garden writing. Someone once asked me
Yes, we sell seeds, but we also encourage seed saving. When you collect your own seed you need to work with nature and watch plants daily in order to catch the ripe seed before the wind whisks it away or the plant releases it to the soil. How do you know when the seed is ripe and ready to collect? If the seed comes away in your hand, it is ready to collect. If the seed is in a pod or a capsule, watch for the first pod to split and then collect the remaining pods, place in a paper bag, and