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| Image courtesy of: Environmentteam.com |
During our first couple of meetings we discussed what we wanted to do for our community. During a few of those discussions, the idea of "Seed Bombing" surfaced and gained much approval from the members. For those who have never heard this term, you can find more information here, but basically it's the act of compiling a bunch of different plant seeds and compost material-compacted into a ball which can be lobbed into barren lots to create plant growth. Now the legality of this has been debated frequently; many people have difficulty defining "littering" and therefore the act of Seed Bombing is in a legal grey depending on where you are. In some cases, can actually land you jail time, and in even weirder instances you can actually end up owning the property!
A little bit of history...
According to Wikipedia.com, " The earliest records of aerial reforestation date back from 1930. In this period, planes were used to distribute seeds over certain inaccessible mountains in Honolulu after forest fires." From there it discusses other attempts to bring plant life to otherwise barren earth. The wikipage however makes no mention of the Guerilla Gardening Movement; so for that we turn to seedfreedom.net who claims, "Seedbombs originated in Japan and are an ancient technique called Tsuchi Dango (粘土団子,土団子,土だんご) which means 'Earth Dumpling' which was reintroduced by a Japanese microbiologist in 1938 called Masanobu Fukuoka." and later acknowledges the 1970s 'Green Guerrillas' and their transformation of abandoned New York City lots. The entire article can be found here.
