Patrick: I’m Patrick from O’Tooles Garden Center. I’m here with Ann from Neptune’s Harvest.
Ann: So I just flew in from Massachusetts, and I heard you were in a drought, but clearly I brought some weather for you guys.
Patrick: For us here in the arid west, water is always really important.
Moisture Retention and Soil Health
Ann: Water is precious nowadays, so we don’t want to waste it. You want products that are going to help your soil retain that moisture. If your soil is hard packed and not healthy, it’s going to just run off, and you really want to capture it. This dry kelp meal product, it’s seaweed. It doubles in size when it gets wet.
Any new plantings, put a handful in, mix it around, and that is going to absorb that moisture every time it rains or you water.
If you have already planted and you don’t have the ability to get this dry kelp into the root system, you can use our liquid seaweed. Same exact product, but one’s dry, one’s liquid. This will rescue a stressed-out plant. You want to foliar feed this early in the morning, or you could also do it in the evening when the pores open again. One ounce per gallon, so this will make 36 gallons of fertilizer. It goes a long way. This is a great rescue product for any plant going through stress.
Organic Plant Nutrition and Family Heritage
Patrick: There’s a whole range of other Neptune’s Harvest products. Can you tell us a little bit about what else you got there?
Ann: Our main product is our fish fertilizer. It’s got your macro, micronutrients, trace elements, amino acids, vitamins, enzymes, minerals. It’s got omega oils. So you’re really feeding your plant everything it needs in nature’s perfect balance.
Patrick: O’Tooles Garden Center has been a family-owned business since my dad started it in 1979. We love supporting other family-owned businesses like Neptune’s Harvest.
Ann: And we are a family-owned business since the early ’20s, when my grandfather started it, and now we have my sister’s grandson working for us, so we are a fifth-generation family business.
The Crab and Lobster Shell Secret
Patrick: One of the more unique Neptune’s Harvest products we get is the crab and lobster shell meal, kind of a secret ingredient for your soil that’s got tons of great benefits. Ann, could you tell us a little bit about the crab and lobster shell?
Ann: So this is great when you’re doing a new planting. You take a handful, and you put it down nice and deep in the hole as you plant, mix it around well, and it’s going to aerate your soil.
The shell chunks are different sizes. The small chunks are readily available. The big ones will break down throughout the summer. So you really just have to put it in your soil once at planting, and it’s going to work through the whole season. It will aerate your soil, give the roots room to move 27]. It will drive the roots nice and deep. The deeper the roots, the stronger the plant, and the higher the yield it will handle.
Our bestseller and all-purpose is the fish and seaweed blend. And if you want to give it a little extra boost, we have our Rose & Flowering and our Tomato & Veg 31]. These two products contain fish, seaweed, molasses, humate, yucca extract, biological microbes, and added liquid calcium.
Patrick: Come to O’Tooles Garden Center for all your Neptune’s Harvest products.