How to Turn Y Yard into a our Garden and Y Neighborhood our into a Community H.C.

Flores
Foreword by Toby Hemenway

Plants and Polycultures

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How to Make Seed Balls

This is the recipe recommended by photographer and ecological activist Jim Bones, who works with schoolchildren to revegetate damaged natural landscapes. Together they collect seeds, make seed balls, and sow them during the rainy season. The plants take it from there. Seed balls are the fastest way to plant a wide variety of plants over a large area, and they are great fun to make. Heres the recipe. Seed mix: This may contain all the seeds for a complete habitat or just a few varieties for a specific combination of crops. Use from three to a hundred different varieties, depending on your goals. Semi-dry, living compost: Do not use sterilized compost. You need the living organisms to help inoculate the soil. Choose your best stuff from the core of a finished pile and sift it. It is a good idea to mix in additional humus or bacterial inoculants to the compost before mixing up the seed balls. Powdered red clay: A few pounds is plenty. Do not use gray or white clayit lacks the important mineral nutrients present in red clay. Mix one part seed mix, three parts compost, and five parts clay. Stir it around with your hands and make sure all the small clumps are broken up. When the mix is grainy and crumbly, add one to two parts water, a little at a time, until you get about the same consistency as cookie dough. Pinch off a small (half-inch) piece of the dough and roll it between your palms until you feel the ball tighten up as the seeds, compost, and clay lock together. Toss the balls onto a tarp and store in a sheltered area for twenty-four hours until dry. Now you can store the seed balls in a cool, dry, dark place for up to several weeksbut it is best to use them as soon as possible, because many of the seeds may begin to sprout immediately.

Seed balls contain anywhere from one to one hundred different kinds of seeds.

Directly under the apple and pear trees he grows perennials such as elecampane, milk thistle, and burdock. These plants attract beneficial insects and provide a living mulch for the fruit trees, plus medicine and food for the farmer. The result is a network of diverse, multifunctional hedgerows with wide, easy-to-maintain beds of annual crops between. The benefits are exponential: First, by consolidating the plants, John uses less water and spends less time moving around irrigation equipment. Next, when he weeds the annual beds, he throws the weeds onto the adjacent perennial beds as mulch, which holds in soil moisture and suppresses weeds. Also, because he often lets the strips go fallow for a few years after each use, he is able to maintain soil fertility with a minimum of inputs. He brings in a few cubic yards of mulch a year and sometimes applies small amounts of rock dust, kelp, or compost. What results is a multilayered rainbow of annual and perennial herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables, literally vibrating in the summer