Something new sprouting in the garden

111

We are happy to announce that I will soon have a new helper in the garden shortly with the birth of our 3rd daughter Mia.  Just thought I would warn you in case my posts begin to get a little extra incoherent, I am not losing it, just sleep deprived.

Winner of the John & Bob’s Grow Green Giveaway

003

I am a little late on this one…but I have a good excuse which I will explain later.  The winner that was randomly selected to win this awesome selection of soil conditioning products from John & Bob’s is Julie Jester.

The Plant Whisperer

The author had a problems keeping his plants alive and provided the plants could not call out for help, he fixed this with a little bit of electronics.  It will call out when it is dry and needs watering by saying phrases such as, “I’M THIRSTY!  WATER ME!”

It is also detects the ambient light level and makes comments on that as well.  This was put together with a little knowhow and about $30 worth of parts.

Instructables Via Hack-A-Day

John & Bob’s Grow Green Review and Giveaway

003

If you have been growing organically for several years your garden is probably beaming with beneficial bacteria and various microorganisms.  Though if you are just starting a garden using bags of sterilized soil/compost or are starting with soil that has undergone many decades of chemical fertilizers, John and Bob’s Grown Green might be just what you need.

The product comes in four parts: Optimize, Maximize, Penetrate, and Nourish.

image Optimize adds humus to neutralize the pH of the soil and also adds nutrients such as calcium and iron  which is benefits cellular wall plant growth but important for feeding beneficial micro-organisms (fungi and protozoa) to encourage activity to break up hard soil and fight plant disease.
image Maximize also includes some minerals to feed fungi and protozoa but also brings in the microscopic plant helps as well.  This is where you can quickly start adding abundant life to your previously sterile soil.  Below are microbial contents:Aerobic Soil Bacteria: 150 micrograms per milliliter.Soil Protozoa: 4,000 per gram.

Soil Fungi: 230 micrograms per milliliter.

Beneficial Fungal Mycorrhizae: 

Glomus aggregatum: 154 propagules/lb*
Glomus mosseae: 150 propagules/lb*
Glomus intraradices: 156 propagules/lb*
Glomus etunicatum: 152 propagules/lb *

image Penetrate is a liquid bio-tiller that contains powerful ingredients that work together to break up hard, clay soils.  This comes in two parts, the first is a highly concentrated compost tea with dormant beneficial bacteria (150 million per ml) that are awakened when you combine with the food from the second bottle which provides food to get that bacteria awake and start rapidly reproducing.
image Nourish is an organic fertilizer made from 100% vegetable sources.  Specifically the vegetables this is derived from is Soybean meal and cottonseed meal.  This organic fertilizer provides the normal NPK nutrients your plants needs but also includes organic matter to support all these microorganisms you have been working hard to get established in your garden.  This is a fast acting organic fertilizer which your plants can benefit from immediately but unlike chemical fertilizers will not burn your plants and can be used anytime during the growing process.

Typically when I do a review I will include some of my own experiments to prove or disprove the products I am reviewing.  Provided this is a product which can at least a few months to prove its effectiveness I will be doing the following experiment this spring/summer.  My lawn contains very bad clay soil (thank you home developers) and is a challenge to keep life growing on it.  This seems like a great challenge for the Grow Green products and will do a this half treated, this half treated with my normal alfalfa pellets and we will see which side thrives the most.  Though my vegetable garden plots should have good number of microorganisms already established I will also use the product on half of one of these plots where I will be growing tomatoes and identify the benefits for a more established garden.

The great people at John and Bob’s Grown Green have also agreed to giveaway the same sample of the products I have pictured above with include all four Optimize, Maximize, Penetrate, and Nourish products.

There are multiple ways to enter:

A winner will randomly be picked on 02/21/11.

GrowVeg and Urban Farmer Seeds Giveaway results

image The winner of the Flower and Vegetable seed kits is Luis Tobon.  You should have a email in your inbox requesting you mailing information
image The winner of the GrowVeg one year subscription goes to Ragnar.  I have passed on your contact info to GrowVeg and you should receive your gift certificate for your one year subscription shortly.

 

For those you didn’t win, no worries we have more giveaways coming up this weekend.

Urban Farmer Seeds Vegetable/Flower seed kit giveaway

     

They great people at Urban Farmer Seeds have graciously offered their Flower Seed Kit and Vegetable Seed Kit to giveaway to the readers of CVG.  Like many seed companies Urban Farmer Seeds is environmentally conscience, one unique thing they do is use recycled magazines to make their seed packets as you can see in the picture below.

We will pick a winner on 02/12/11, as usual there are multiple ways to enter:

  • 1. Add a comment to this post
  • 2. Like CheapVegetableGardener on Facebook (add an additional comment to the post)
  • 3. Mention this giveaway on your site/Twitter (add an additional comment to the post)

004

IKE