Guerrilla Gardening.
Sounds a bit odd. I picture a housewife from the '50's (read June Cleaver)
sporting greasepaint on her face and a camo apron, stealthily slinking through
her petunias, spade raised at attention. Beware aphids, everywhere!
In the real world, guerrilla gardening refers to a growing movement of
urban hipsters (read Zooey Deschanel) who surreptitiously green up nasty vacant
lots and other bare places in their concrete jungles. Often moving under cover
of darkness, they clean up trash, pull weeds and plant flowers. Some places
sport high, razor wire topped chain link. Alas! But wait, the guerrilla
gardeners have developed a work-around. Undaunted, GGs (soooo tired of typing
guerrilla gardeners. Drat-did it again!) have come up with recipes for little
seed-filled missiles to toss nonchalantly over fences. Wherever they land blooms
after a few rains. This does, of course, assume no scary junkyard dog runs off
with them.
So, back to me. I know,
I know, so needy! I don't live in an urban environment. I live in the 'burbs.
Not far enough out that I can have chickens but far enough that I've had a wild
turkey in my yard. And yes, the bird, not the booze.
Anyway, you would think
out here that everything is verdant, lush and landscaped. That beauty abounds
and flowers flourish.
I say nay, nay.
There are still ugly
strips of weedy neglect, frontage road wastelands, parking lot medians that
need a little something extra. So there is room for improvement, even out here.
Plus, who doesn't like to see an unexpected burst of flowers?
We decided to fix that
by making our own seed balls.
One of the girls' pals
was in my elementary school garden club last year. She shares our affinity for
growing things and so we invited her to join our Secret Society of the Green Thumb. Okay, we aren’t really called
that but it sounded cooler that way.
In honor of Earth Day,
and the eventuality of spring, we gathered to mix up a batch of these little
flower grenades.
After poring over many recipes, I came up with a hybrid
that seemed to be the best fit for us. Here is how we made our seed balls, er
bombs, er grenades…
Clay: We used Crayola
air-dry. It was too chilly this morning to dig up native clay, but if we do
this again, that's the route I will take. Some recipes call for powdered or dry
clay, but breathing in the silica particles if the powder gets in the air is
dangerous so I wouldn't use that method with kids. Buy it at Hobby Lobby or
Wal-Mart.
Organic compost: Some
folks don’t have any hang-ups about the compost being organic or not. I use
organic gardening products in our home garden because we eat out of it so I had
organic. You can get some at Lowe’s or Wal-Mart.
Seeds: I think you
should always use native species when doing this with flower seeds. That way
you don’t do more harm than good. We chose native Texas wildflower seeds from Lowe’s.
Water:
Self-explanatory.
Butter knives for
portioning.
That’s it.
Now for the fun part.
My friend Amber and I gathered our three youngest girls (the older two joined
when middle school let out) together on our driveway. I spread a plastic
tablecloth on the ground for a smooth, non-porous surface and assembled all the
ingredients.
After a quick tutorial
(to follow) the girls took off. Cranking out missiles like pros.
I kept up with jotting
down quotes until my fingers were too caked with clay to handle the phone. I
lost track of who said what, but here are the highlights.
First, cut off a chunk
of clay and flatten it into a pancake-not paper thin but not ¼” thick.
“Ooh, it’s like we are
making a pizza,” one of them instantly said.
Next, sprinkle a layer
of seeds on the clay.
“This is like granola,”
another said. “It can be a dessert pizza!”
“Like we added granola
to white chocolate dough.”
“Or it could be
sugar-cookie dough crust,” suggested their pal.
Now add a generous
layer of compost.
 |
| sorry, fuzzy pic. |
“Now add the chocolate
to the top.”
Then drizzle a little
water into the mix. Not enough to goop it up, just to dampen the compost.
“Now you drizzle on the
chocolate syrup.”
I told them to use the
knives to cut the “pizzas” into quarters.
“What is quarters?”
asked the youngest.
“Cut it in half and
then in half again.”
“Oh, in fourths!”
Right.
“So this is like a
math, gardening, cooking show,” said the youngest.
Scraping the dough up
carefully, ball up each pie piece, containing the soil and seeds in the center
of each ball. Then roll the balls in
more compost until they are coated. “I lost my Earth Truffle,” said the
youngest as she dredged one in compost. “Oh, whew, I found it!”
The compost will feed
the seeds as they grow and the clay will hold it all together and keep birds
from eating the seeds too soon.
Of course, as we
reached this step and the balls started accumulating, they started discussing
what else they looked like.
“Ummmm, it looks like a
big rabbit came by here with a stomachache,” said one of the girls. (Aren’t
girls soooo much more delicate than boys?) They all dissolved into gales of
giggles.
And then, just when I
thought I had lost them to potty humor, the middle child said, “I'm gonna teach
my kids how to do this.”
Melting Mommy!
On that note, we
wrapped it all up. We now have a good stash of truffles. I’ll post back about
how we dispersed them. The hubby has a really great idea involving a golf club
and a vacant lot…we’ll see!
P.S. The youngest wants
me to remind you that even if they look like truffles you can’t eat them!
