Natalie gives wool a second life as a soil improver

Did you know that there is a 100% natural alternative to artificial fertilizer and peat? Natalie Bogtman from Haarlem came up with a fertilizer pellet made from Dutch sheep wool. We spoke to her about the origins of ORO wool pellet and what this can mean for our plants (spoiler: a lot, even in the Moroccan desert!).

Psst... you can win a whole bunch of wool pellets for your houseplants, balcony plants or in the (vegetable) garden! Check out the contest here .

Does she have green fingers herself? Natalie laughs: “I would say ‘wool fibre fingers’. I tend to overwater plants, but wool is very handy for that. It retains moisture so you really don’t have to water as much.” The editors of Gardeners’ World have been using wool in the garden for a while now, but as a cloudy mulch layer . ORO wool granules are, as the name suggests, a granule that you work into the soil, just like you would do with other fertiliser granules.

“A handful per plant, applied to the roots,” Natalie explains. “Mix it underground with soil, and it will remain nourishing for your plants for at least 8 months, thanks to organic fertilizers such as nitrogen, potassium and sulfur. It will then be digested into humus, without leaving behind any polluting microplastics or salts.”

With the wool pellets, Natalie has found a smart way to reduce the mountain of wool waste. There was a time when she had a flock of sheep around her house, first on the hobby farm of her then boyfriend, later in a meadow nearby. Of course, that also meant: helping with the sheep shearing. The smell, the texture ... she fell in love with the material immediately. She decided to make works of art from it and thus spread her love of wool. But, she thought, surely more must be possible with so much wool that is left over?

“I thought it would be a shame if we only knitted sweaters from it,” says Natalie. In her own words, she started a company in wool pellets ‘by accident’. “In 2017, I lost my job and decided that I wanted to continue doing something with wool. I started reading up on it: there is more than 2 million kg of wool available in the Netherlands – how can you process that on a large scale? All wool processors have now disappeared from the Netherlands and most sheep wool goes to China for mattress fillings, although that has been at a standstill since the corona pandemic. I discovered an American company that pressed pellets from wool. The result was impressive: plants that were fed with wool pellets were bigger and stronger. Their roots were healthier than plants that grew in peat.”

Natalie borrowed a pellet press and made her own wool pellets from finely chopped Dutch sheep wool in a warehouse in Haarlem – bought from farmers, where it would otherwise be thrown away or burned. “There are quite a few grazing herds from which we can buy wool, for example in nature reserves. In this way we create a healthy and fair circle.”

For over two years, the brand-new company was obsessed with inspections and Skal certification, which prove that the product can be used safely and organically. “Of course, you can’t just make everything yourself and put it in the ground. A whole new world of inspection systems and certifications opened up for me. Proving that your production is safe requires a lot of patience and high costs. In the end, we decided to outsource the production to a recycling company in Alkmaar, which has the right certification, machines and manpower for this.”

“We can stop using artificial fertilizers and use peat! There is a 100% natural alternative.”

ORO wool pellets are now running at full speed. Municipalities are knocking on their doors for help with public green projects and a pilot is running in Morocco, where desert soil is enriched with wool for the planting of trees and plants. The wool pellets are also a discovery in agriculture. “There, the soil is often very compacted and impoverished and wool can bring back more air. Plant roots can grow much better that way.”

Natalie is as proud as a peacock of these milestones. “And now I want to go to even more garden centres to tell the story. We can stop using artificial fertiliser and peat! There is a 100% natural alternative, just like cocoa shells, and that is wool. Fertiliser is of course not such a sexy topic of conversation. That is why we have to work extra hard to show why it is good.”

Bio-Kultura, Sprinklr and even Intratuin are among those selling ORO wool pellets . “It’s a tough switch to organic gardening, so I think it’s great that they’re sticking their necks out for us, as a relatively small player on the market. Fortunately, you see that there’s more and more attention for organic products in the garden.”

We now know what the wool pellets are for: as a water buffer, plant food and aeration of the soil. But does Natalie have any smart tips for use?

“Use wool pellets especially in the spring, so that plants start the season stronger. And give an extra hand before the holidays, to give your plants a better chance of survival in dry and hot weather . Pots in particular dry out less quickly!” And this is not a tip but a reassurance: “You can easily get it wrong, because the wool is odourless. In contrast to cow manure pellets: you almost feel sick from the smell!”

Take a quick look at the contest to get a chance to win a prize package from ORO wool grain . We can make no less than 18 plant friends happy! Are you in?