Families escaped another rainy October day on Wednesday to create colourful seed bombs inspired by our “Pharmacopoeia” exhibition. What is a seed bomb? Well it can take many forms but in general it’s a way of getting seeds to areas which can’t be reached easily. In big cities like New York, “Guerilla Gardeners” have taken seed bombs made of paper, clay or even eggs and thrown them onto areas of derelict land to help bring some life to abandoned or neglected ground. You can find plenty of examples online.
We decided to make seed bombs with a medicinal theme, as the exhibition shows how people have been using plants as medicine for hundreds of years. Our seed bombs contained seeds for plants such as peppermint, thyme and chamomile. Participants coloured, shaped and moulded blobs of mushy wet paper (which was messy but fun) into balls and sprinkled their choice of seeds in to the bomb. They also made lovely decorated boxes to keep their seed bombs safe over the winter months. In spring they will throw their seed bombs onto a piece of land and watch to see if something grows. It is a bit of an experiment as lots of things could happen between now and summer. If the seeds are kept somewhere too hot they could start growing too soon, or a bird could eat them. But hopefully some of the seeds should survive and we’re looking forward to seeing the results! We’re going to try it ourselves so we’ll keep you posted.
Here is a photograph how-to so you can make them at home:
1. Choose your seeds.
2. Choose which colour of paper you would like to use in your seed bombs.
3. Mix the pulpy, mushy paper with the shredded tissue paper.
4. Shape them into loose balls.
5. Sprinkle your seeds over the balls so they fall into the cracks and inside the bombs.
6. Squeeze the bombs tight to shape them and get rid of excess water. Then leave to dry. They may take a couple of days to dry out completely.
Our Family Fun participants also made and decorated gift boxes to put the bombs in.
Here’s what some of the children had to say about their afternoon:
“Today I … enjoyed making the bomb seeds it was really fun and we really had to get creative but the best bit was getting our hands mucky in the water”
“Today I … enjoyed making seed boms beacause we got to mush up paper it was mushy and i like mushy things”
“Today I …enjoyed making the box. It was very fun. I also liked making the bombs to put the seeds in!”
Our next Family Fun is Wednesday 24th October from 1-4pm, when we’ll be making creepy owl puppets for Halloween. Maybe we’ll see you there!
Posted by: Sarah and Lynsey
UoA Collections 
Great idea!!