As some of you will likely recall, I went through a bit of a late-winter seed ball craze. Once things got busy with my Canadian worm business, however, I got side-tracked (as is often the case in the spring) and my focus ended up elsewhere.
Doing a bit of clean-up (emphasis on “a bit” – lol) down in the basement recently, I found a box of kale seed balls. I made them, back in February or March, by combining vermicompost (from my VB48) with drink tray cardboard pulp and a small amount of clay – and then simply mixing in a bunch of “Red Russian” kale seeds.
My wife and I are serious kale consumers (primarily in green smoothies) – and believe it or not, even the kids graze on the small number kale plants current growing in the garden (lol) – so it was actually a pretty exciting find. Luckily, Kale is pretty frost-hardy, so I should have plenty of time to try growing some of them!
I don’t have much in the way of garden real estate available for new plants at the moment – but that certainly didn’t stop me from planting (and in some cases, simply tossing) quite a few of these seed balls.
The spot with the most potential is likely the neglected worm bed sitting in front of my backyard composters. I grew quite a few bush beans there last year, and I suspect that kale will do even better. All I did was toss a few handfuls of the seed balls on top, before covering them with a layer of coarse vermicompost.
There was only one bed where I left the seed balls completely exposed. I’m curious to see how readily they will germinate and grow without any cover. In most of the other planting locations, I simply shoved the seed balls down into the soil.
I must say that planting seed balls is a lot more fun than messing around with loose seeds. Now we’ll just have to wait and see how many kale plants I actually end up with!
Stay tuned!
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You should throw a handful of kale seed around to see how it compares to the seedballs.
Great idea. So as to make it a bit more controlled, however, I think I should probably try it in pots. Would be hard to know what went where out in the garden.
Very in interesting. Keep us updated please. I actually got onto your site to see who you recommend buying seed balls from, then I found this kale post.