I do love a good bit of gardening equipment or gadget and I am reviewing three here that I think have earned their place in my gardening world.
I have been sent the following products to review. I have not paid for these products and I have not been paid to write these reviews. My opinions and words are entirely my own.
Let me start with the Hozelock Pure Sprayer. This 7 litre sprayer is specifically designed for use with natural products: so you would use it for compost teas and other home made solutions you might wish to use in your garden. Some of these solutions can be more acidic than other chemical treatments and this sprayer can cope with this. I decided to make some nettle tea to test out mine.
I have many nettles and making nettle tea is easy. You chop up lots of nettles into a bucket, I used water from the rain butt to steep them in. Cover it, stir it a few times and leave a few weeks (holding your nose as it gets a bit stinky) and then its ready to use.
The sprayer comes with a handy straining net and the sides of the sprayer are translucent so you can see how much you have left in your tank. The sprayer is, I am going to say, a little fiddly to put together but once this is achieved it is really easy to use. I am certain I am going to get a lot of use out of it. It retails for around £45 though if you hunt around t'internet you may find it cheaper.
Next up is the Insect-o-cutor Nomad fly killer. Now I admit I did not say yes to this straight away as I am not a great killer of insects. This time of year though I do like to have more windows and doors open than usual particularly in the evening. I find that I get a mosquito or two wander in and I do react rather badly to their bites. After such a bitey episode I decided to say yes to trying this gadget. You do not have to use it indoors in fact the whole point of the Nomad is that you can take it anywhere so it is great for outdoor entertaining and camping too. You charge up the integral battery and you are good to go. It folds down for easy portability and emptying the container of the dead is straightforward too. It does work (sorry flies, I do feel a bit guilty) and if it means a few fewer bites than it is worth it for me. It retails from Robert Dyas for around £34.
The Spiraclimb metal spiral plant support is one of those garden products that when you look at it you think it does not look like much. It is, however, worthy of the awards it has won. This, as they say, is a little beauty. It is made from glavanised spring steel and can spiral up to 1.2m tall.
It does what it says it does, it spirals and holds your plants upright, all good.
The reason why I like it so much is that it works with your garden stick, it does not have a height-limiting inbuilt stick. So it hooks onto the bottom of your bamboo cane and into the top.
Voila! as they also say. This is so simple and yet so clever as all the best garden accessories are. I also like that it is easy to retro-fit. I am sure you all stake your plants before they need staking and never wait until they have flopped. If like me you tend to think about staking post-flop then this works really well. You can carefully wind the foliage through it so that it looks like you staked them ages ago. This retails direct from the manufacturer starting at £10.99 for one, but the multi-boxes make a much better buy: e.g. a box of three is £18.99.
