Please welcome Ethan Sager, of Again and Again Farmstead!

Please join me in welcoming Ethan Sager, of Again and Again Farmstead for a very special giveaway of four Packs of wool pellet fertiliser!



Made from 100% waste raw wool these make an excellent slow-release fertilizer and compost additive, as the wool retains moisture and improves aeration. As an added bonus, wool pellets make a great slug deterrent!



Read the review of the wool pellets here! more information here.

At the end of this week, we'll make a drawing for 4 lucky winners to win a 1 lb bag and a 2 lb bag of Pelletized Wool each! From now until Friday, all new posts in the small farm forum are eligible to win.

To win, you must use a name that follows our naming policy and you must have your email set up to receive the Daily-ish email. Higher quality posts are weighed more highly than posts that just say, "Wow, that's really cool! I want to win!"

When the four winners are selected, they will be announced in this thread and their email address will be sent to the Farmstead, and the Farmstead will sort out the delivery details with the winners.

Please remember that we favour perennial discussion.  The threads you start will last beyond the event.  You don't need to use Ethan Sagar's name to get his attention. We like these threads to be accessible to everyone, and some people may not post their experiences if the thread is directed to Ethan alone.

Posts in this thread won't count as an entry to win the pellets, but please say "Hi!" to Ethan and make him feel welcome!

Here is a big welcome to Ethan, I hope you enjoy your time here at Permies.

Nancy -- Whoo Hooo, most excellent !!!  One Permaculture Brick at a time.

Welcome!

I have heard of the benefits of wool usage in gardening spaces but have not had the pleasure of experimenting with it myself. I am fascinated by potential usage of 'scrap' wool to create pellets.

Thank you for joining us and I hope to learn more.

Welcome to Permies!

That is a cool use for wool.

Welcome!

Thanks everybody! The permies.com community is amazing.

Welcome to Permies!

Welcome to permies Ethan!

It's great to see some interesting action happening in the Small Farm Forum!

Welcome, Ethan!! I'm looking forward to learning more about wool uses! Thanks for joining us!

Wow, I'd be interested in learning about how these are made.  What a great product.  Welcome!

Hi Ethan, I  am so pleased to be part of this organization. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

I am so excited to have found permies.com! What an amazing resource. I love learning and oh my gosh there is so much to learn here!
Until today I had never heard of wool pellets. Using every bit of an item is one of my core beliefs and this certainly fulfills that!
I've read everything from the links that you've shared here and I'm so looking forward to the possibility of trying them with soil blocks, as well as in soil but I don't have land yet so, it'll have to be soil blocks for now!
Last year I learned about using hemp bedding as fertilizer and used it for growing Market flowers! They were beautiful.
This is going to be fun 😍

What piqued my interest is wool pellets' potential to improve sandy soils. I'm in South Florida where we have sugar sand and organic matter is used up incredibly fast! Wood mulch disappears in a few months and I'm constantly having to add compost to my tiny food forest.
Thanks for your generosity.

Welcome Ethan!  Excited to learn!  Does throwing old wool socks in compost pile (which I have done) have similar effect???

Cris Fellows wrote:Welcome Ethan!  Excited to learn!  Does throwing old wool socks in compost pile (which I have done) have similar effect???

 Yeah, I was wondering something similar, though, unfortunately, it seems like wool clothing is getting harder to find.

Hello Ethan,
   It's so nice to see a neighbor here on Permies. I'm sure everybody's going to learn a lot from you.
-Ellen from South Conway, NH

Welcome! What a fantastic idea turning waste wool into amendment pellets! I see wool used in gardens, but it doesn’t seem to get mixed in so much as used as mulch. I have very very sandy soil so I’m always looking for new amendments to add. I even amended my beds with pure bentonite clay kitty litter soaked in fish/seaweed emulsion before adding it to the beds. Had a bumper crop of veggies that year that I haven’t beaten to this day.

Welcome Ethan!  

Hi Ethan, thanks for sharing this with all of us.

Welcome Ethan! I’m really intrigued by the idea of wool pellets. I’m looking forward to learning more about them.

Hello!  I am constantly surprised at the ingenuity of these boards!  I live in a high vlay soil ares- how much would a 1 pound bag cover?

Welcome Ethan!
what a great idea for wool waste!

Welcome Ethan.  I looked up your town and it's a two + hour drive from where I am in Vermont.  Do you have a shop where people can buy your product?  

A number of years ago I'd watched a segment on TV about (I believe) a Scottish farmer who started using wool in his garden and how many benefits he discovered from it.  All of his neighbors started using wool in their gardens with wonderful results after seeing how well it was working.  That's as far as I ever went with it, being I have no real access to sheep's wool. His was used more in a mat form which acted as a mulch and weed barrier. It repelled bad bugs...there were a lot of positives and I know I am missing many that were listed, but to be fair, this was well over ten years ago!

Then, a few weeks ago, I was reading about hair sheep, more specifically, Katahdin sheep who don't need to be sheared, but instead lose their coats every spring. It sounded like an elegant solution! I was thinking that I might want to raise one or two...I only have an acre, and it's in a small village that has a highway going through the middle.  The problem is that I know that they'd become pets and I could never have them killed for food. I was intrigued by the idea that they would help keep the lawn sheared and their "byproducts" would help to fertilize the gardens.  I wasn't sure about whether they would stick to the grass or also eat my gardens and that is as far as I went with it.

I will definitely want to find out more about your product. I always appreciate resourcefulness!

Good morning!  Looking forward to reading and responding to the forums - also looking forward to entering the giveaways!  

Our garden needs some help.  Maybe sheep wool pellets would help??  Will be interested in finding out!!  Thanks in advance!

I'm curious what is the advantage of pelletized wool for the garden vs non-pelletized raw wool. I've heard that wool pellets make an excellent addition to soil blocking mix and plan to try it this year.

Welcome and thank you for promoting wool pellets!  I recently heard about wool pellets at the garden expo in Madison, WI this past February.  I did purchase a small bag to try, but haven't had the chance to use them yet - you know, weather and all.  The idea of making use of such a useful and sustainable by-product along with additional income for farmers is an exciting win-win!

Bonnie Gee wrote:

Cris Fellows wrote:Welcome Ethan!  Excited to learn!  Does throwing old wool socks in compost pile (which I have done) have similar effect???

 Yeah, I was wondering something similar, though, unfortunately, it seems like wool clothing is getting harder to find.

Old wool socks should break down over time similar to raw wool, definitely throw those socks in the compost pile. I haven't tried socks precisely, but raw, unprocessed wool takes a good amount of time to break down unless you are hot composting. Pelletized wool breaks down a little faster because it's ground and heated with steam to over 160ºF and forced through a die to make the pellet shape. This preprocessing allows for pellets to break down a little faster than raw, untreated wool, but it's still a slow release.

Ellen Schwindt wrote:Hello Ethan,
   It's so nice to see a neighbor here on Permies. I'm sure everybody's going to learn a lot from you.
-Ellen from South Conway, NH

Hey Ellen! Fun to see you on here. We'll have to catch up on the flax project sometime this Spring.

Kate Staples wrote:Hello!  I am constantly surprised at the ingenuity of these boards!  I live in a high vlay soil ares- how much would a 1 pound bag cover?

Hi Kate! You can apply based on a soil test, but one pound usually does about 50 square feet, or a 4 x 12 bed for a visual.

Erin Cross wrote:Welcome! What a fantastic idea turning waste wool into amendment pellets! I see wool used in gardens, but it doesn’t seem to get mixed in so much as used as mulch. I have very very sandy soil so I’m always looking for new amendments to add. I even amended my beds with pure bentonite clay kitty litter soaked in fish/seaweed emulsion before adding it to the beds. Had a bumper crop of veggies that year that I haven’t beaten to this day.

Hi Erin, wool makes a great mulch, but it can make a mess with rodents. Pelletizing it makes it an ideal form factor for applying in your soil. We just make furrows and sprinkle them in like little jimmies.  Nice idea with the bentonite clay. If you have cats, we also make a kitty litter deodorizer from sifted biochar. Charbar Cat Literbox Deodorizer. It eliminates odor, but also since it's biochar it gets innoculated by your cats. I wouldn't recommend using it in your vegetables, but if you have a flower bed, you can toss it in your garden. Biochar works wonders in sandy soil.

Cara Campbell wrote:What piqued my interest is wool pellets' potential to improve sandy soils. I'm in South Florida where we have sugar sand and organic matter is used up incredibly fast! Wood mulch disappears in a few months and I'm constantly having to add compost to my tiny food forest.
Thanks for your generosity.

We have sandy gravel soil here on this farm too. Wool works very very well here because it is holds water like peat moss and breaks down slowly. This slow release helps prevent nutrient leaching which is a big problem for sandy soils which drain quickly. Especially in South Florida where rains all the time.

Barbara Simoes wrote:Welcome Ethan.  I looked up your town and it's a two + hour drive from where I am in Vermont.  Do you have a shop where people can buy your product?  

A number of years ago I'd watched a segment on TV about (I believe) a Scottish farmer who started using wool in his garden and how many benefits he discovered from it.  All of his neighbors started using wool in their gardens with wonderful results after seeing how well it was working.  That's as far as I ever went with it, being I have no real access to sheep's wool. His was used more in a mat form which acted as a mulch and weed barrier. It repelled bad bugs...there were a lot of positives and I know I am missing many that were listed, but to be fair, this was well over ten years ago!

Then, a few weeks ago, I was reading about hair sheep, more specifically, Katahdin sheep who don't need to be sheared, but instead lose their coats every spring. It sounded like an elegant solution! I was thinking that I might want to raise one or two...I only have an acre, and it's in a small village that has a highway going through the middle.  The problem is that I know that they'd become pets and I could never have them killed for food. I was intrigued by the idea that they would help keep the lawn sheared and their "byproducts" would help to fertilize the gardens.  I wasn't sure about whether they would stick to the grass or also eat my gardens and that is as far as I went with it.

I will definitely want to find out more about your product. I always appreciate resourcefulness!

Hi Barbara! We don't have a store yet, but we sell at the farmers market and at wool fiber festivals in NH and Maine. The Vermont sheep and wool festival won't let us yet because they don't have any space, but we are on their vendor waiting list.  You can pick up right here at our farm here in Tamworth as well. The market is every Saturday May 17th - March. We only take April off. Tamworth is well worth the trip. Email us if you are coming and we can give you all the info you need. You can also order online.

Raw wool as mulch works great at regulating moisture and temperature, but it makes a mess. In pellet format, it opens up lots more doors for usage. One thing we've used raw, unpelletized wool for in the past is season extension. We've saved tomatoes from late season frosts by covering them with wool.

Michele Sundholm wrote:Our garden needs some help.  Maybe sheep wool pellets would help??  Will be interested in finding out!!  Thanks in advance!

Wool pellets will definitely help! It's a great source of organic matter that breaks down and releases nutrients. Sheep eat a wide range of plants and all those nutrients end up in the wool.

For those of you who are interested our local NH news station just put up a short piece online they made with us in it. You can see our entire wool operation in action.

Amy Pulsipher wrote:I'm curious what is the advantage of pelletized wool for the garden vs non-pelletized raw wool. I've heard that wool pellets make an excellent addition to soil blocking mix and plan to try it this year.

Hi Amy! Pelletized wool vs raw unprocessed wool has the following benefits:

Quicker breakdown, but still slow release

Does not encourage rodents in the garden

Can be sprinkled into shallow furrows

Makes a sustainable alternative to peat moss

Easier to store

Works great in soil blocks

Can revitalize potting soil for container growers

Makes a great slug detterrent when surface applied. Once it rains, it will expand on the surface.

But definitely use your unprocessed wool if you have it!

Hi Ethan.   Does the hair of all furry mammals act similarly to sheep wool? We probably have to compare raw wool to raw other.  Haven't heard of  anything else being pelletized.

Beth Girdler wrote:Hi Ethan.   Does the hair of all furry mammals act similarly to sheep wool? We probably have to compare raw wool to raw other.  Haven't heard of  anything else being pelletized.

Hi Beth! It sure does, all hair is organic matter and can be used in the soil. The advantage of wool is sheep eat forbes, grasses, and tree fodder. All these plants mine potassium deep in the soil. So wool has high potash and high nitrogen, as opposed to human hair which is mostly nitrogen only. Wool also has lanolin which has fatty acids that are excellent food for microorganisms.

I haven't run other hairs through the pelletizer, but I easily could. I just have loads of sheep wool. A pelletizer machine would be a good add-on for a wig factory.

Here's some science that shows results with both wool and human hair

Welcome Ethan from sunny Spain ☀️ never heard of wool fertiliser before.

Hey folks! remember to post your questions in a new thread in small farm forum as posts in this thread won't count for the giveaway! Here is a good thread for talking about using wool pellets.

I always put my hair clippings in my compost heap - another reason to go 'pooless' of course!