When: April 22, 3:30pm-4:30pm
Where: Online (registrants will receive teleconference info).
Format: Video (participants can opt to be heard but not seen)
Cost: Free (seeds are sent for free too to those who register by 4/18)
Instructions: Live demonstration and information to be sent to registrants.
Click here to register for free!
Celebrate Earth Day with an activity you can do indoors and then follow up safely outside! HarborLAB will even send you seeds to make seedballs at home, either virtually together or by watching our instructional video.
Background: Seedballs are small clumps of compost or nutritious soil with native seeds (you can use ours, buy your own native seeds, or even use seeds from organic blueberries). They replicate frugivorous endozoochory, or the scattering of seeds in nutritious poop!
Seedballs are bound together with natural clay powder or flour, or even newspaper and corn starch! HarborLAB volunteers, students, and public participants kayak to habitat areas identified by conservation agencies as needing milkweed, goldenrod, pitch pine, little bluestem, or other important species. Clay and flour balls can be simply tossed, while paper balls are lightly buried. By next season, pollinators like butterflies and bees feed from them, and birds like black skimmers nest among them. Their root systems also strengthen shorelines and the denser vegetation mitigates storm surges.
Or you can distribute seedballs, strolling or biking to abandoned lots and tossing them over fences, or scattering them in the corners of your yard or garden.
Materials needed for clay or flour seedballs:
Natural clay or flour.
Water.
Top soil or compost.
Regionally appropriate seeds – HarborLAB’s, or blueberries and sunflowers are native.
A bowl of water.
A work surface.
A shallow cardboard box, like a pizza or bakery box.
Materials needed for paper seedballs:
Prep time of about three hours before the activity.
Newspaper.
Corn starch.
Water.
Top soil or compost (optional).
Regionally appropriate seeds – HarborLAB’s, or organic blueberries and sunflowers are native.
A jar or two.
A spoon or whisk.
A bowl.
A work surface.
A shallow cardboard box, like a pizza or bakery box.