Product Review: Annie Haven’s Natural Moo Poo

Every gardener is always looking for new nutrients to try.  If you prefer real natural fertilizer, Annie Haven’s Moo Poo is for you.  Moo Poo is an all natural soil conditioner made from life stock manure.  It is also known as manure tea.

Organic NutrientsThe Moo Poo comes in tea bag sized pouches that you let seep into water for a few days before use.  It is a really simple process for some really strong organics.

One tea bag can make as much as 5 gallons of nutrients.  If you are using a hydroponics system, I suggest using one tea bag for 10 gallons or more.  You can really make these go a long way.

The natural tea is perfect for all kinds of plants.  You can use it indoors or outdoors.  It is good for container gardens, outdoor gardens, and even hydroponics.

Hydroponic gardeners will be able to get 90+ gallons of fertilizer out of the 9 pack which is only $22.  Thats the same price you are paying for nutrients now.

There are three types of manure tea from the ManureTea.com shop.  You can choose from horse or cow manure for your vegetable garden.  There is also an alfalfa mix for roses.

Click here to learn more.

Organic Nutrients

Delicious Home Hydroponics Salad Harvest

Organic Hydroponic Garden
Thriving Mesclun in a mini DWC system.

Why should you use hydroponics to increase your yields?  The same reason you started a garden!  If you have ever had a successful harvest, you know the feeling I’m talking about.  Some growers are discouraged by organic fertilizers when it comes to hydroponic gardens.  Fear not growers, water soluble organic fertilizers are available online and at local hydroponics shops.  Some greens can even be grown using tiny amounts of fertilizers. Basils, lettuce, mesclun, and other leafy plants can be grown organically in hydroponics system with very little fertilizer.

Organic indoor gardens can be maximized with the use of hydroponics.  Organic hydroponic systems are like normal hydroponic gardens, but with a little more care to detail and quality.

Organic Hydroponics
The seeds for this plant were started in soil. The container with the soil was planted directly into a mini DWC System for extremely explosive vegetative growth.

The salad mix in the picture was started in a jiffy pot full of soil.  When the seeds sprouted, the jiffy pots were put into a mini DWC system.  The roots grew through the soil and into the DWC environment.  There was explosive root growth when the roots entered the high humidity environment.

The salad grew very fast under simple CFL lighting.  Small hydro setups can produce big results with the right knowledge.

Indoor Organic Garden
This is a single 3 inch jiffy pot full of soil. Each Jiffy yielded at least 2 or 3 servings of salad greens under only CFL lighting.

Product Review: AzaMax – Controlling Spider Mites


Lately I’ve had a pretty bad infestation of spider mites and aphids and I have been looking for the best solution for my plants without getting into nasty chemicals that will affect the taste of my food at harvest.  Gnats are another common indoor gardening pest I have had trouble with.  A simple solution for gnats is the yellow sticky paper that you can put along the walls and on posts in the containers of your plants.  Spider mites however don’t really fly around or get attracted to the bright yellow colors.   They seem to just be attracted to the pretty green leaves of my plants!  Flattering… except spider mites are gross and I would not like to eat them, regardless of how much they want to eat the leaves of my plants.

I tried spraying some solution of Neem PY onto my plants and it takes a few days to kick in but it slows down the infestation for sure.  Neem makes the bugs slow and frankly just plain stupid.  The bugs aren’t killed instantly, so don’t feel like you’ve been cheated because all your bug problems are still there.  The neem makes the bugs not hungry and unable to reproduce.  The bugs will eventually starve to death and the babies will hatch damaged or will eat the neem on the leaves right away and become affected.   The Neem PY wouldn’t stop the infestation completely but it certainly crippled them.  No matter how much neem I used the spider mites kept coming back.  One time I used too much neem too close to harvest and I could taste its tangy flavor on my food.  It wasn’t as horrible as a I thought and was better than eating mites, but I would rather have the best food possible not just “okay” food.  Thats why I grow my own!

To get the infestation in check I picked up some of General Hydroponics’ AzaMax because two other indoor gardeners recommended it to me.  I figured it would work like Neem PY but it was actually amazing how much stronger it was.  I foliar fed the AzaMax to my plants and than poured some solution into my hydro reservoirs to ensure the plants would be bug proof.  After about two days it seems like almost all the spider mites have died or stopped moving.  It definitely helped control the gnat problem too.  I have not harvested the food the AzaMax has been applied to since it is new but I will be sure to write about how it has affected the food flavor and aroma if at all.    If you decide to go and try AzaMax I would try foliar applications at first to see if you can rid the problem that way.  This is especially good if you are still in the grow phase and the fruits you will be eating or picking have not started to form yet.  AzaMax is a little pricey for how much it recommends to use but I promise it does work well.  I will most likely continue to use Neem PY and AzaMax as a preventative and reactionary pest control solution.

Another good feature of AzaMax is that it is OMRI (Organic Materials Review Institute) approved.  Sometimes labels can be questionable since any company can label their products “organic.”  Look for the OMRI or other official organic labels.  Make sure to look up and research any product you think is suspicious or may be claiming to be organic.  You can take a look at the OMRI web site here.  Even though some forms of hydroponic systems use inorganic parts, I still think it is best to get the closest thing you can to organic every time.  I believe this can yield a more natural and usually sweeter tasting fruit or vegetable.

Get General Hydroponics AzaMax at Amazon today to protect your indoor garden investment. You can also read customer reviews here.