Let's Get Naked! {Giveaway}

With summer officially here in the northern hemisphere, my attentions have turned to my garden. I try to go organic as much as I can in our yard, from composting to avoiding pesticides. I have been known to use a little Miracle Gro on my flowers, but those synthetic fertilizers may make the plants look great for a little while, but in the end, they really stress them out.

Royal Ranch's Naked Nure is a wonderful product for indoor and outdoor gardeners who don't have access to manure to help nurture our plants. And you may know that manure is great for plants, which is why farmers spread it over their fields, in spite of the smell.

Naked Nure is essentially a "tea bag" filled with, um, llama poop.
Before you go getting grossed out, let me assure you that it's really not disgusting. The pellets come in a papery bag, and they are dried out. So when you're using these, you don't actually have to touch the poop. They do smell slightly of manure, but I only smell it when I'm a few feet away. And it's really not such a bad smell.
You toss the packet in about 5 gallons of water and let it sit for a few hours, until the water is dark brown. The bucket above was only sitting for about an hour. Once you have your wonder water, you can transfer it to a watering can and go nuts on your garden.

I've reused the packets a few times, and when they're spent, I just toss the pellets around the base of the plants. They'll eventually break down and add more nutrients to the soil.

According to founders Tom and Judy Jeute

Naked~Nure is 100% all natural llama manure in handy, eco-friendly, reusable tea bags. Llama manure is higher in nutrients than any other barnyard animal and can be used immediately, thanks to the very efficient three chamber stomach of the llama. We have created two types of tea bags, one for indoor use and one for outdoor. Both bags are made of recycled materials and can be reused.

Tom and Judy raise the llamas on their ranch, Royal Ranch, which is also a secluded B&B in the Colorado Rockies, and they "harvest" the llama manure to sell to gardeners. So why use manure at all? Manure contains the 3 essential nutrients for plants--nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Fresh manure from cows and horses can burn plants if used immediately, but llama manure can be used directly on the plants without harm.

I've tried them out on my hanging baskets and tomatoes and the results are impressive. Here's how they looked when I first planted them in May

And look at them now, barely a month later!

Now I do need to admit that we've had so much rain and cool weather this month, which may be why my plants don't look so heat-stressed, but I do think that the Naked Nure is giving my plants what they want.

Judy is adding a little freebie if you order some Naked Nure of your own--llama wool for your garden's feathered friends. Since many organic gardeners are bird watchers, this would be a nice little treat for the birds to use in their nests. If you order a bag of Naked Nure (only about $12), she'll throw in a bag of llama wool. Just mention you saw her products on Katydid and Kid.

How would you like to try out Naked Nure? I have a bag of 5 Naked Nure packets for you, all packaged up in this little tote that Judy sews herself
To Enter:

Visit Naked Nure or Royal Ranch and leave a comment about something that intrigued you, or why you'd like to try this, or something about your garden. Make it interesting people, it's poop we're talking about here!
Extra Entries (leave a separate comment for each one):

• Blog about this contest (2 entries--leave 2 comments)
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• Follow me on Twitter (Katydidandkid) and tweet this giveaway, leaving a link to your tweet in the comments. You can simply copy and paste my tweet, if you'd like: Go Green in the garden! Win a set of 5 Natural Gardening Compost Tea Bags http://bit.ly/18SHjA @katydidandkid
• Vote for me in the BloxLuxe awards (Swiffer Cleanest Blog). It's the first category, and just enter your email address for Katydid and Kid. Let me know the number of votes there in your comment. You can do this once every day, and you can leave an additional comment.
  
• 
• Vote for Mom Most Traveled in the BlogLuxe Awards for Blog You've Learned the Most From (last category). Also leave the number of votes that were there when you voted. You can do this once every day, and you can leave an additional comment.

This giveaway is for US postal addresses only.
You must do the first entry in order to enter ("I want to win, thanks!" comments will NOT be considered). You will have until Sunday July 5th at 11:59pm EST to enter. The winners will be chosen via random number generator the next day and notified by email. I'll also post the winners on my blog. If I don't hear back from the winner by Thursday at noon, I'll pick another.