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?

Update on Nature's Curator

Ten days into my trial of Nature's Curator and mixed results so far. The tomato plants are actually a couple of cm smaller than the unsprayed ones so far. However the black krim is looking much healthier and is flowering now. For the broccoli its the same, both plants are smaller than the unsprayed one but the one that had been slug eaten has developed some new leaves and is looking well. So the spray is living up to its claim to improve the health but not doing it in terms of bigger size.
Baby beetroot for tea last night was delicious with burgers. The mesclun is growing so fast I am having trouble eating it all. The cut and come again is working great. I just take some scissors out and hack away. Within a few days its like I haven't even been there. I really should have planted more than 6 strawberry plants as I am getting two or three ripe strawberries a day but not enough to feed the family. Especially when the kids keep nipping out to the deck to help themselves. I have to say though, that they are the sweetest strawberries I have had for a long time. I had a look in a couple of garden centres this week but I think I must have missed the boat as none of them have any more strawberry plants. Oh well, there's always next year.
My pot of one pea plant has given me some lovely pods, and I have munched away on the raw peas. However I'll have to wait for the other plants, in the square foot garden, to come in before there's enough for a proper feed.
Potatoes are flowering- so I might get a crop for Christmas. Capsicum in small pots looks healthy and should be ready to go into the beetroot box as that finishes. Chilli is still small and I think I may have had some pumpkin seed in my wormcast as that seems to be whats coming up in the barby. Surprise!

Nature's Curator

I was approached last week by a company called Nature's Curator. Having read some of this blog they wanted me to test out their product. Yesterday, I received a small bottle of this liquid which is diluted and sprayed onto your plants. It only takes 10ml to mix with a litre and they state that it is completely organic. This stuff is not a fertilizer nor a pesticide but is supposed to stimulate both growth and resistance. They have asked me to perform a six week trial complete with photos. As well as giving them the information that they need I will also be logging results here. Yesterday I sprayed two tomato plants (one the Black Krim with which I have so many problems and the other a moneymaker which is the same size now as the others in my deck planter; and two broccoli plants, one the same size as the other in my square foot garden and the second a little larger but much abused by slugs). No change this morning - but I really didn't expect results quite so quickly, hehe!
I am interested to see if this product will work as claimed and you can be sure that you will get an honest review here. If anybody has other products that they would like to have reviewed I am happy to do so but with the warning that I will be completely honest and I refuse to endorse anything that does not live up to expectations. Bear in mind too that this blog is about organic gardening so I don't want to try any chemical solutions.