Making seed bombs is a great sensory and tactile activity for children of all ages. It’s also a perfect learning activity to include in any educational conversations about pollination, pesticide use and it’s impact on bees, and creating bee-friendly wild spaces and gardens.
Very simply, they are little rolled balls of clay, compost, seeds and a bit of water, that will sprout into bee friendly plants and offer a source of nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinators.
Whenever I get to make these, I only use organic, non-gmo seeds and ones that haven’t been coated with neonicotinoid insecticides, which are commonly used to coat seeds.
Be prepared to get messy and consider this an outside activity!
Any native flower seeds collected from your garden or an assorted meadow flower mix (make sure they’re not an invasive species)
Peat free compost
Clay (you can use powdered or fresh clay soil if that’s all you can find)
Water
Mixing bowl
Drying tray or similar
5 parts clay
3 parts compost
1 part seeds
1 part water (or more if needed)
Slowly add in the water and use your hands to mix until everything sticks together and is well combined.
Now the fun part! Start rolling the mixture into firm, tightly packed balls no bigger that the size of a golf ball. Don’t be tempted to make the balls too big as the little seeds in each ball need space to germinate and grow out.
Once all of the mixture has been rolled into balls, place them on a tray and leave to dry in a sunny spot.Depending on how warm it is where you are, you can do this for a few hours or a few days.
When the balls have sufficiently dried, they can be thrown, scattered and sewn in any barren or deserted areas in your garden, or in any wild spaces needing some colour!
We’d love to see your creative seed bombs! Tag us in your posts on Instagram!
