Throw them hard..!

We all eat fruits and admire the flowers. But there are few people who preserve the seeds of fruits and flowers and make seed balls out of them. Mrs. Bharati Haradi is one of such environment-loving people.

Coming from an agricultural family and having spent most of her childhood on the farms, Mrs Haradi has immense love for nature and the environment. Her father had a spice garden which was one of its kind. Her grandfather made seed rakhis which inspired her to make seed balls.

She is making seed balls since 2012 and till today she has made more than 10,000 seed balls. Bharati makes seed balls every year in January and February and throws them into the valleys as the monsoons start spraying in June.

Each seed ball is made up of 40 to 50 mixed seeds. A seed ball is made using soil, water, ash, cow dung and neem powder with seeds of medicinal plants like Bakul, Karanje, Gulmohar, Banyan, Nana, Belpatri, Kadamba, Tulsi, Neem, Mandar and fruit seeds such as mangoes, jackfruit, jamun, lemon, ramphal, tamarind, chikoo, hanuman phal, laxman phal and variety of flower seeds found in the Western Ghats.

Mrs Haradi buys fruit seeds from local farmers in the market, she visits vaccine depot to collect seeds of medicinal plants, she also visits surrounding jungles to collect seeds and many of her friends also give her seeds of fruits after eating the pulp. Today, she has a seed collection of 400 different rare plants.

She distributes the seed balls for free to trekkers, travellers and environment lovers and asks them to throw the seed balls in some valley or an area where greenery is less. Whenever the seed balls are thrown, they break up and seeds gradually grow into saplings and later turn into trees.

She asks them the location where they want to throw the balls so that she can give them appropriate seed balls like jungle tree seed if you are throwing them in jungles or hilly areas like Jamboti and fruits and flower seeds if you are throwing them in valleys or open fields like in Gokak.

She now has regular trekkers and travelers who collect seed balls from her before traveling. Bharati has also trained many people at schools, colleges, social groups, clubs and organizations about making seed balls.

With temperatures soaring high every year and the green cover depleting rapidly, we all need to support and follow Bharati madam in her initiative. On this World Environment Day, come let us collect some seed balls from her and “throw them hard” into the valleys.