sheep wool as mulch – great results so far!

[zuf]

Hello no diggers. 🙂 I laid down wool on some beds in fall. Directly on no dig established beds, previous season there has been lefmold/compost mulch. Soil underneath was warm quickly, in dry spring that we had, soil stayed moist.

I planted into it by moving away small circular patches for individual plants, giving each patch a handful of compost and then planted different kinds of plants. Here are the results so far…

early cabbage

cucumbers

golden, red and sweet beet

sweet pepper and eggplants

[charles]

Gosh I can see that your temperatures are higher in summer (pepper, aubergine, cucumber already looking so good) and congratulations, it looks a great use of wool Zuf, which on many farms here is hard to sell. Are slug levels comparable to no mulch? As wool is supposed to be anti-slug.

[zuf]

There are no slugs under it and on it. It’s the same case with other people who have problems with slugs. I’m still not sure, but i think i will prepare most beds like this for next season in late summer and before winter. Thin layer of compost on soil and then wool. It awesome cover as far as i can say. More about it later in the season. 🙂 As far as weather goes, 15 of May is the last possible frost day in Slovenia. This spring i don’t recall having any strong frost. We had weaker winters in past 10 years. But still we get cold now, aubergines and peppers are a bit cold now, not really optimal for being outside. Wool helps a lot, but still. We have this three ice men. Pankracij, Bonifacij and Servacij. They bring the last cold, possible frost on 12., 13., 14 of May. It really is like this most of the time. Then there is Saint Zofija, who is wise, but it also brings big rain. If it’s not rainy on here day, then summer is not going to be good. This year however, ice men didn’t really happen, Zofija did, but the cold came back few days ago, with rain. Now sun is coming back and i think the summer will really start. Of course we have lots of summer day in spring already, but, you know, they are temporary. Again those aubergines and peppers are the same as they were put in ground on 16th, right after Zofija. 🙂 If they would be in bare ground i would be pulling them out, hahaha. 🙂 I wish i would wait a bit, last year it was the same, i guess ice men are going to be late from now on. 🙂

[oisinkenny]

Hi Zuf and Charles. As I’m starting to struggle with caterpillar and slug damage on no dig, woodchip mulched salads and spinach particularly I’d be delighted if you could help by perhaps giving an update whether your experiment was successful all season long. I have tried sheeps wool as mulch before briefly but it ended up somehow harbouring slugs by the end but I’m going to try a number of new approaches with woof again soon. Keep up the good and easy work of No Dig 🙂

[charles]

Hello Oisin, I have not heard from Zuf and hope he sees this. I agree that wool has harboured slugs on my beds, when I used it a few years ago.

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