Category: Compost, Mulch, Etc

On Yahoo! Canada today there was a news article from ABC News entitled “Hair: the best fertilizer?” – all about using human hair as fertilizer for plants. At first I thought perhaps it was a new exciting way to fertilizer my garden, but the article’s title was a little misleading.

The article talks about a nursery in Florida that uses human hair that has been pressed into mats for weed control around their plants. The nursery owner says that he’s saved thousands of dollars on herbicides and labour because of the human hair mats.

That sounds a lot more like weed suppression than fertilizer to me.

No where on the internet can I find anything about human hair being a fertilizer, though it would have merit as a weed suppressant – just like plastic mulch, wood chips, hay, and host of other materials. For my garden, I think I’d much rather lay down a strip of plastic mulch than a wad of hair.

So before you rush out to buy a truck load of human hair, check out some mulching ideas from Bob at NorthernGreenhouse.com for a simpler, easier way to suppress weeds and retain moisture.

Read ABC’s article.

Watch ABC’s video.

After my grapes went through their first winter, I wasn’t sure they had survived. Well, after my fruit trees had all budded out and leaves were appearing, my grapes still hadn’t shown any signs of life. I began to suspect the Alberta winter had killed them.

However, eventually, a couple of the stems on my Valiant grapevine began to sprout out some leaves. Then along came my Prairie Star not long after. But my Kay Gray didn’t seem like it had any life at all. I was just about to uproot the lifeless stick when a little bud appeared just at the base of the plant.

At the end of the day, all three grapevines made a full recovery, but at least 80% of last year’s growth was winter killed. Because of that, there was no fruit to be had that year.

So let me share with you some of the lesson’s I’ve learned.