FAQ’s about Wool Pellets

There are many benefits to using wool in the garden. When we first started making wool pellets, my mother-in-law remembered her mother would put wool around plants. As sheep have disappeared from our farms, using wool to grow has also disappeared from gardening habits. Over the past year we have had many questions about how to use pellets. The following is how we use them. Please reach out if you have other ways!

How much does a 1 lb or 2 lb bag of Woolly Belly Pellets cover? That all depends! The general answer is 30+ square feet or mixing 1/2 cup of pellets with a gallon of soil or soil mix. Use this ratio when planting pots, hanging baskets or other containers. Mix the pellets into the soil. Any pellets that end up on the top should be pushed down or you will see wool once they are watered.

How do you start seeds? If you have a seed starting mix recipe, replace the peat moss with pellets. Wetting the pellets a bit to fluff them up before mixing with your seed starting soil is recommended. Don’t have a favorite seed starting recipe? Use 3 parts of a peat free soil mix with 1/2 part of wool pellets slightly wet and pre-fluffed. A few recipes also recommend blending up the wool in a blender first. Find a used food processor at your favorite resale store.

A great reference: https://hennepinmastergardeners.org/no-peat-potting-soil-options/. (side note, I have not used sand in my mixes. This spring we are trying wool shreds. The difference between wool shred and pellets would be pellets are heated to 170F. The heating process destroys any residual seed heads that could be in the pellet or any other farm residual. Please let us know what works best for you!)

Do you have a large garden and want to use pellets? Here are your options. Till pellets at a 2-3% volume rate or estimate 1 lb for every 30 square feet. Another option is to grab a 5 gallon bucket, add some soil, mix 1/2 cup to gallon ratio and use this to back fill around your seedlings. If you are planting seeds, open up your row and sprinkle pellets down the row mixing them in with the soil.

Indoor plants: Have plants already planted? Sprinkle 1 T -1/2 cup pellets around the top of the plant and push them in with a pencil. Use the 1/2 cup per gallon of soil ratio when you repot your plants. For succulents, use less when sprinkling and 1/8 cup per gallon of soil ratio.

What is the pH of wool pellets? Around the world, different pellet making companies and those studying pellets have found the pH to range from 7.02- 8.8 (contact us if you would like the studies from this). If you are a wool fiber person and do natural dyeing, some studies have shown that the pH of wool fibers can be a bit lower than the above numbers and more in the range of 4.5-6.5 pH. Overall, don’t use wool pellets around acid loving plants such as blueberries, azaleas, hydrangeas, or magnolias.

How do wool pellets compare to peat moss? Peat moss has a pH between 3-4. (See right above for wool pellets.) While peat moss claims to hold 10 times its weight in water, wool holds at least 3 times its weight in water or more. Wool is renewable, all natural, and environmentally friendly. Peat moss is not renewable and not environmentally friendly. It took thousands of years for a peat moss bog to develop. Digging up a thousand year old bog releases lots and lots of carbon and does NOT help the local environment with water retention. Leave those peat moss bogs alone and use wool pellets instead. Put carbon back into the earth by using wool pellets. It’s a win-win with wool!

Why are some of the pellets different colors? Different sheep have different colors of wool and the pellets reflect those color differences.

Where and why would I use just shredded wool? Shredded wool can be used as a mulch around plants for a weed barrier. Have a slug issue? Slugs also have an issue with wool fibers. They do not like to walk on wool. Surround a plant with Shreds and help protect it from slugs. You may also use a ring of pellets.

What about any seeds that might be in the wool?  The pelleting process heats up the wool to over 170 degrees Fahrenheit which will kill seeds. Most seeds are destroyed at temps less than 120 degrees Fahrenheit. Please note that Shreds are 100% raw wool which has not been treated in anyway besides run through a shredding machine. We do our best to use the cleanest fleeces (ie. those with very limited vegetable matter in them) to make our Sheepy Shreds!

Why Wool Pellets

Does it sound crazy to add wool to soil?

Shouldn’t we just make yarn?

We are pretty sure using wool in the garden started hundreds and hundreds of years ago after the first domesticated sheep was sheared. The shearer pulled off all of the “yucky” wool from the fleece and threw it in a pile. The good wool was washed, combed, spun, felted, or woven into a garment or rug. That pile of “yucky” wool broke down over a few years making a wonderful compost. If it was thrown near a plant, the shepherd noticed the plant needed less water and was nice and green. The problem shepherds found using fleeces in the garden was the time it took for them break down. A fleece takes 1-2 years to decompose and tends to felt or becomes a mess of tangled fibers. Pelleting wool takes away the mess allowing for an easy way to use wool in the garden or containers. Woolly Belly Pellets bring all the great attributes of wool to your garden without the mess.

Ewe and Me Wool Company buys only local wool from local shepherds! As shepherds, we know the struggles wool sheep are facing in the US. If a shepherd can sell their wool, it typically does not cover the cost of shearing let alone transportation. In Wisconsin, shepherds cannot even find a buyer for their wool. We hope to change that with pellets from Ewe and Me Wool Company.

Make the switch to Woolly Belly Pellets from unsustainable soil additives such as peat moss while still conserving water, adding nutrients and porosity to your soil. Woolly Belly Pellets make plants happy, sheep too!

~ Shepherds Beth and Jannell