Seed Bombs; winning the war on concrete

Image courtesy of: Environmentteam.com

A brief introduction...

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.

Painting the Town Green

Image courtesy of: ApartmentTherapy.com

A Statement in Moss

By: Ian Salamanca

 As you may know, I'm all about making a greener city; even if only visually I feel Los Angeles could use a healthy dose of flora.  So an idea I have been playing around with for a little while, is going to be my first proposition for a club project.  The concept is known as Moss Graffiti, and has been gaining in popularity in many metropolitan cities and many green art movements.  The idea is to create a sort of "Moss Paint" in which one would create their design, and then come back weekly to water it into life.  Moss is a tough life form that grows well in any orientation with a moist environment that gets moderate sunlight.  It tenaciously clings to porous surfaces such as brick, stone or wood; and best of all, like all plants provides clean oxygen for those around it.

Making the stuff is easy, as many of the sites I found (and included below) state:

• One or two clumps (about a small handful) of moss
• 2 cups of buttermilk
• You can also substitute with yogurt (vegan yogurt can be used)
• 2 cups of water
• 1/2 tsp. sugar
• Corn syrup (optional as a thickening agent)
• Mixing and Cleaning Bucket

Basically you make a mossmilk smoothie which you can then use as your paint.  Thicker concoctions would be good for heavy paintbrushes, if it's thinner it can be apply by spray bottle or airbrush.  From there you are free to start tagging this urban jungle.