Today I bring you a brilliant guest post by the wonderful Jo Manwaring-Spencer. If you don’t follow Jo on Instagram, @_jo_skye, go and click that button! You will be rewarded with down-to-earth chronicles of looking after sheep through the demanding Scottish seasons, remarkable photos of the family, the farm and its surroundings on the Isle of Skye, exquisite knitwear, fueling recipes, and keen insights into living with nature from inter-dependence and natural wisdom.
In my mission to share the unending benefits of wool, I wanted a post about using wool in the garden, and could think of no one better informed than Jo to help us along. I’m so excited she took the time to write this for us in her incrediby busy schedule, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did, and that your gardening with wool experiments bring great fruition!
All photos in this post are by Jo Manwaring-Spencer and used with her kind permission.
Wool; A Natural Gardener’s Choice
Winter is on its way out the door and this year, I won't be sad to see it leave. The months have trudged along in a monotony of wind, rain and grey. So much grey.
The days are beginning to stretch out temptingly now though and the sun feels warm some days – albeit fleetingly. Our thoughts, and yours if you are that way inclined, are turning towards gardening. Especially to our vegetable plot. We are dreaming of sweet tomatoes, plump peas by the thousands, fresh raspberries, steadfast potatoes and everything else in between. But there is a lot of work to do between now and then.
One material that has proved a blessing in our endeavours is wool. That wonderful, natural by-product that our sheep produce. Wool can be used for a wide range of applications, but it wasn't until a couple of years ago that we realised what an asset it could be to our garden.
We started late Summer. We lay full fleeces out onto a corner of the field until the whole area was carpeted in wool. All Winter, we left it there. It has killed the grasses, dock leaves and nettles underneath – much like plastic sheeting would do. But unlike plastic sheeting, wool is biodegradable. It takes time. Anything from a few months to a few years, but as it decomposes, it releases vital elements such as nitrogen, potassium and sodium into the soil. So not only are we preparing beds which will be relatively weed free and ready to plant into when the time comes, we have also been feeding the soil which will in turn, feed our vegetables, which will feed......you get the picture!
Any day now - once the final frosts have passed, we will be lifting the wool from the ground. It will be starting to rot underneath and we will marvel at the way it has felted itself to the soil. We will peel it back and fritter away minutes watching the plump worms and beasties who have made a home under the warm, damp fibres.
Come late Spring/Summer, wool will then be used to mulch around many of our seedlings– rhubarb, peas, raspberry canes – and as a border around our potatoes, carrots, parsnips and leeks. Rumour has it that slugs and snails don't like to cross a woolly border, making wool the perfect, natural pest deterrent. And that's not all.
Suint (or sheep sweat!) in the wool, is a readily available feed for plants and studies have shown that young plants will root into raw wool preferentially over plain soil. And during heavy rain, the wool will soak up water so that it doesn't just wash away the soil. And in the dry weather, it acts as a reservoir, staying damp for longer than the dried out soil and allowing plants to uptake this precious water.
All of this makes wool an excellent choice for the garden but most importantly of all to us– it's natural. Anything that does a job and isn't full of chemicals and plastics is a winner in our eyes.
If you are looking to use wool in your garden this year, I have two pieces of advice.
• Ask a local farm if you can buy wool directly. Shearing normally happens in Summer.
• Ensure that the wool has not recently been treated with chemical pour ons. Some of these chemicals wouldn't be great for soil health.
In a few months time, you will find me picking peas, walking barefoot on the warm, soft woollen paths. But alas, for now it is bitterly cold and I am off to sow some seeds in the greenhouse. Wrapped in layers of woolly hats and mittens no doubt.
I wish you a happy and abundant growing season.
Jo Manwaring-Spencer
@_jo_skye
