Simplified seeding with Seedball

The manufacturers of Seedball sent me a couple of tins of their product to try out and review. It’s an ingenious idea, little pellets of clay and soil packed with lots of different wildflower seeds in each and a little chilli powder to keep the ants away. You scatter a few over your putative seedbeds and wait for the rains…or as I did grab the watering can and sprinkle a few drops of pre-stored rainwater from the waterbutts. These seem like the perfect answer for the wannabe gardener who doesn’t want all the hassle of seed trees and seedlings and pricking out and thinning out and all that malarkey. I’m not averse to a bit of proper gardening as long-time readers will remember and also more recent readers will be aware that Mrs Sciencebase and I have taken to #AllotmentLife recently. Nevertheless, I thought I’d set up a couple of tubs with Seedballs from the bat and the butterfly tins. Each ball contains 30-150 seeds and there were a couple of dozen Seedballs in each tin. I’ve used half from each tin in my tubs, and we’ll give it a couple of weeks to see how germination goes (it can take 2-6 weeks depending on water exposure, apparently). There’s nothing to show you just yet, I have great expectations, however. Meanwhile, the sciencey bit. The clay acts as a protective casing keeping birds away from the seeds. Once sufficient water has permeated the clay, however, the seeds will hopefully begin to germinate, with a little help f...
Source: David Bradley Sciencebase - Songs, Snaps, Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Sciencebase Source Type: blogs