Using Wool in my Plot

The bathroom project is going well and although the builders are great, it still limits my gardening time. For a period we had to use the outside loo, ty bach or ‘little house’ as it’s euphemistically called here in Wales. Not a problem until the wind is howling and the rain hitting hard. When it’s the middle of the night, it certainly wakes you up – leaving you bone tired to start the next day.

Although they’ve done all that you could realistically expect, the amount of dust that’s created is painful. 3 times in a week I’ve had to wash the vacuum cleaner’s filters as they were clogging with fine dust. Still, a couple of fine days allowed some progress outside.

Wool

Mulched Border in Greenhouse

In my last post, I touched on my using sheep’s wool insulation as a mulch in the greenhouse border. It’s effective as insulation when shipping temperature sensitive and frozen goods like foods and medicines by post and courier.

My neighbour kindly gave me his insulation from their cat’s luxury food, which supplemented my medicine’s insulation. It’s biodegradable and can be composted but, for me, it’s most effectively used in the greenhouse’s border.

It performs a number of functions:

• As a weed suppressing mulch
• Retaining moisture by reducing evaporation loss from the soil in hot weather.
• As insulation for the soil, preventing roots being scorched by hot sun heating the soil surface
• It seems to stop slugs and snails from moving over it, and I’ve not seen any hiding under when I lifted some to check.
• The light colour reflects sunlight up to tomatoes, helping to ripen the fruit.
• And most importantly, it provides a soft, warm bed for our elderly cat, Dexter!

Downfall of Wool

Arguably, the wealth of the UK was based on wool. ‘Wool became the backbone and driving force of the Medieval English economy between the late thirteenth century and late fifteenth century’ from History of the Wool Trade.

It’s a sustainable byproduct from sheep, completely natural. Sheep generally have to be sheared each year, or they end up in a terrible state – overheated and eaten alive (literally) by maggots.

Now, despite are the talk about natural and sustainable, wool is all but valueless. Clothes being made of fibre mixes with synthetic fibres, and wool blankets on our beds being replaced by duvets filled with polyester.

A local farmer who keeps a few sheep told me the price he gets paid for fleeces does not even cover the fuel cost for taking them to the collection point. So when I said I can make good use of them, I hardly had chance to pause before he arrived with a load for me.

Value of Wool to Gardeners

Old gardening books mention the value of wool and particularly wool shoddy as a slow release fertiliser. Especially the wool trimmings from the back end of the sheep with the attached dung.

Wool is mostly made of keratin, which takes time to break down and slowly release nitrogen into the soil. Wool also provides small quantities of sulphur, phosphorus, and potassium, as well as other micronutrients. It improves water retention capacity, aeration and stimulates the microbial actions.

It can be useful as mulch and in the base of bean trenches, but I’m using this load between my new raised beds to mulch the paths. Eventually they’ll break down and the resulting improved soil can be transferred to the raised beds.

Fleece Path Between Raised Beds

Covering the Paths

Black Sheep Fleeces in the Path

I don’t know how we do it, but the amount of cardboard we accumulate is scary. Coloured and coated card goes to the recycling but plain card is useful as a weed suppressant mulch. There’s no great nutritional value, it does add carbon back to the soil.

Usually I would cover cardboard on a path with wood chips, but my source has dried up so the wool fleeces will do a similar job. A luxury carpet, between the raised beds.

Note:

I don’t believe wool is a wonder material as those with a commercial interest in selling wool garden products would have you believe, but it does have value. Don’t get fleeced, but when it’s free, it’s hard to go wrong.