Human Hair Makes Good Fertilizer

The researchers suspect that some of the difference between hair and the inorganic fertilizers is due to the time it takes for hair to degrade and release its nutrients. So hair shouldn't be used as a sole fertilizer, at least for fast-growing plants, they concluded.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[fcsakes]

Human hair, dog hair, cat hair, hare hair - all organic, all goes back in the soil. Right along with fingernail clippings and banana peels. Nothing new, been doing it for fifty years in my yard.

[BlueKansas]

Same here. This is not news. We've been recycling dog hair into the garden for years, and it takes a long time to break down. Good source of nitrogen, though. More than once, I dig into the soil and came up with a big matted mess that looked like wither a bad toupee or a dead animal carcass.

[BabsfromKansas]

We mid-westerners know how to compost!

[EndangeredJackalope]

A group has been using salon hair clippings and ladies' leggings to make absorptive "hair mats" for oil spills -- they soak up an incredible amount of oil (as hair naturally does) and they're reusable up to 100 times.

Then the mats can be composted using straw and mushroom spores to completely break down the hair and oil, to make healthy soil.

Its crazy stuff. Invented by an hair stylist in the South. Salons/barbers around the country send in boxes of their customers' clippings on their own dime. Really good project.

here's their website -- matteroftrust.org

[Topfeeder]

Human hair also keeps deer away from your plants, same as human urine.