Gallery: First Seedbomb Vending Machin...

Guerrilla gardeners in San Francisco have some new ammunition with the recent installation of the city’s first seedbomb vending machine! Designed by L.A.’s Common Studio, the re-purposed gum-ball machine is set up in front of Bi-Rite Market in the Mission District, where it vends “bombs” containing seeds and compost encased in clay. All they need is a little bit of water and they will sprout – toss one into an abandoned lot or even a pothole, and voila: green space.

When a team member at Common Studio acquired some old gum-ball machines from a family member, they sat around on the porch for quite a while until the idea struck to fill them up with green space-growing seedbombs. With eight machines up and running in Los Angeles, this weekend Common Studio brought its first dispenser to San Francisco and set it up in front local green business, Bi-Rite Market. Proceeds from the San Francisco dispenser and one in L.A. will go to Project H Design. The organizers are also fund-raising to be able to put machines in areas that are poor economically but rich in gray space, such as Compton and Watts.

Don’t know where to bomb? Check out this Google map, identifying sites that your brothers and sisters in ‘bombing have cased. Another map tracks bombing sites, so you can cruise by and see what’s growing. If you toss a bomb of your own, don’t forget to register it here.

+ Common Studio

+ Project H Desgin

Photos by Cameron Scott for Inhabitat