Mud pies with a purpose

Seed Bomb Recipe

3 parts clay – Dry low fire red clay or fine all natural unused kitty litter 2 parts organic potting soil 1 part seed Water Mixing bowl Cookie sheet Wax paper

1.Line cookie sheet with wax paper. 2.Mix seeds and potting soil together. 3.Add clay or kitty litter and mix again. 4.Slowly add water, mixing into a well-blended paste. 5.Stop mixing when you are able to form a ball that holds together. 6.For into 1-inch balls and place on cookie sheet. 7.Allow bombs to dry for 1-2 days. They dry faster in the sun. 8.Bomb the area of your choice! Do not plant.

Mud pies with a purpose

BY ANITA MILLER

Nothing feels quite like squishy mud when you close your fist around it. It tries to escape between your fingers and finds a seemingly permanent home under your nails.

Making mud pies is just a childhood memory for many. However, those same skills can actually help turn a forlorn piece of bare earth into a wildflower garden.

Seed balls – concoctions of seeds, soil, water and a binding agent like clay or kitty litter – can pull off a landscaping miracle, explained County Extension Agent Kate Blankenship, whose specialty in the county’s Agrilife Office is home skills. A dozen or so “balls” tossed out in October can transform a sunny area with good drainage into a wildflower meadow that will bloom year after year with little additional care or worry.

The process is simple and starts with commercially-available mixes of perennial wildflower seeds native to Texas. For her demonstration, Blankenship used one sold by Bayer. To that add purchased soil. “You don’t want to use soil from your house because it can have weeds in it. Buy a premium soil,” she recommends. Next, she adds a little water and finally, a binding agent. Though the recipe calls for low fire red clay, that can be hard to find. Kitty litter is a good and available substitute, but Blankenship warns to choose an “all natural” variety without chemicals added for odor control or other purposes. “Keep working it,” she says, “until it sticks together.”

Ideally, the balls will be about an inch in diameter but perfection is not the goal. Put them on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper and let them dry – ideally, for a day or two.

“Then when they are dry you can toss them out into the field.” For an area about the size of a classroom blackboard, she recommends 10 to 12 seed balls as evenly spaced as you can throw them. “In a few years you will have a meadow for the bees, birds and butterflies that’s really pretty.”

The advantages of putting seeds in a ball are many. “If you just threw seeds like this in your back yard they would just blow away,” she cautions. “Within the ball, the seeds are protected from birds,

sun and wind.” When spring rolls around the seeds will sprout and burst open the ball. Because the wildflowers are perennial, they will reseed themselves year after year.