Nature's Curator

The six week trial with nature's curator is over and I can't say that I'm particularly impressed with it. The Black Krim tomato which was very sick is now healthy and has two fruits on it but I'm not sure that two tomatos on a plant is particularly great. The money maker tomato has more fruit than that but is smaller than the untreated plants and has a few less fruits. The broccoli has recovered from the slug attacks but has not yet budded whereas the untreated broccoli is on to its second budding already. All the plants were in the same sort of conditions and for the tomatoes they were in the same planter as the untreated ones. To be honest I seem to have more success with just the seaweed tea rather than NC and the tea. My comment is that if you have sickly plants then this stuff could save them but at $80 a litre (which admittedly dilutes to 100 litres) it could be an expensive way to go. Probably a better idea to make sure that your soil is healthy and contains plenty of compost, is mulched well and you feed the plants regularly.
On the upside my strawberries are still fruiting well but I know that next year I will plant a lot more of them as I don't seem to get enough for a proper feed all at once, especially when the kids go out and help themselves every day.
My cucumbers all seem to be the small pickling type, which is a bit of a disappointment but they are yummy raw and in the next few days I will have enough to pickle a couple of jars. The Courgettes in the barbecue are just coming into flower and there looks to be plenty of fruit coming. I ate all the spinach last week and I even had a feed of silverbeet (chard) at last. No sign of fruit on the peppers yet but I have a couple of healthy plants. The potatoes are about ready to lift and the spring onions are doing well. I lifted three large white onions which grew from one that sprouted in the pantry and they were delicious.
I had a bit a problem the other day after some really strong winds. One of my Tomato plants fell over and snapped the stake at ground level. The stem of the plant was creased so I put in a tripod to hold up the plant and mulched the bottom 20cm or so of it, seems ok so far. I have planted some more potatoes, some in a bucket and some in the square foot garden. I will hopefully have some more planted in the next few days. To be perfectly honest I think my best crop has been marigolds, which I only planted to keep the nasties away but I have been able to cut flowers almost every day.
A friend told me that he has a greenhouse that is surplus to requirements and all I have to do is take it away and its mine. I just need to borrow a trailer now and hopefully I will be able to continue growing right through the winter. I also met someone else who has a greenhouse for which he bought a small solar panel that is sufficient to run a heater. That looks the way to go. A place to hide from the kids in the wintertime!!

Happy New Year

I've been away for a few days camping and the garden is running rampant. I'll get out and sort things out in a minute after I have written this. My strawberries have decided to go for the large look but don't want to get red. Plenty there but they are teaching me patience. One of the broccoli has gone to flower but the others are all still without buds so pehaps I just got a bolter for that one. I'll cut off the flower and see if it grows other heads. Tomatoes are swelling and just getting the first tinge of colour change, cucumbers are swelling nicely and should be ready to harvest in a while. The basil has doubled in size and so has the oregano. I thinned the oregano last week and used the thinnings on top of home made pizza, lovely flavour. Onions are just about ready and the bin full of potaoes is starting to die back so nearly harvest time there. Garlic is still coming on well and the courgettes don't have proper sized fruit yet but I will keep a very close eye on them, I don't want marrows. The beans are growing steadily but still no sign of my silver beet. What do I do wrong with these things?