TheEasyGarden - Gardening Forum

the one I get tea from is my compost tumbler

the water leaches thru the tumbler and compost

That is LEACHATE.....

COMPOST TEAS VS. COMPOST EXTRACTS

How do compost teas differ from compost extracts or compost leachates?

Compost leachate—the dark-colored solution that leaches out of the bottom of the compost pile—will most likely be rich in soluble nutrients; but in the early stage of composting it may also contain pathogens. It would be viewed as a pollution source if allowed to run off-site. Compost leachate needs further bioremediation and is not suitable or recommended as a foliar spray.

Compost extract is made from compost suspended in a barrel of water for 7 to 14 days, usually soaking in a burlap sack. This centuries-old technique yields a liquid fertilizer with soluble nutrients.

Compost tea, in modern terminology, is a compost extract brewed and aerated with the addition of a microbial food source. (Examples of microbial food sources: molasses, kelp powder, and fish powder. Examples of microbial catalysts: humic acid, yucca extract, and rock dust.) The compost-tea brewing technique extracts and grows populations of beneficial microorganisms.

Compost teas are distinguished from compost extracts both in method of production and in the way they are used. Teas are actively brewed with microbial food and catalyst sources added to the solution, and a sump pump bubbles and aerates the solution, supplying plenty of much-needed oxygen. The aim of the brewing process is to extract beneficial microbes from the compost itself, followed by growing these populations of microbes during the 24- to 36-hour brew period. The compost provides the source of microbes, and the microbial food and catalyst amendments promote the growth and multiplication of microbes in the tea.

Buff you do not have to call me by my full name - makes it sound like I am in trouble ......you can just call me Mean

rooster-red wrote:

I have a buddy that uses fish tank water, is this basically doing the same thing?

Well in a word.......dunno.. if you are asking if this is an aerated leachate then yeh kinda.....if you are asking if this is a compost tea then....no, not enough "ingredients"..... But it still is aerated (good) and has the nutrients not only from the fish "manure" but any uneaten food protein.

Meanqueennadine is right on the money there.

Aerobic microbes are the good guys
Anaerobic microbes are the bad guys

Ever smell stenchy water from the bottom of a large pot that had no drainage for a long time? Plants don't grow in that soil even if you dry it, well, not very well. It's loaded with the waste of bad bacteria. Not bad as in naughty, but bad for plant growth.

Ever smell the sweet smell of well made compost? That is the aroma of mostly relatives of mushrooms, microbial funguses, fungi. Also some good kinds of bacteria that use oxygen and CO2 and nitrogen.

Those aerated compost tea makers nowadays come with bags filled with spores for good fungi and good bacteria. They come with nutrient stuff, mostly low grade molasses, and some very special microbes such as root web, a common name for a kind of fungus that grows around roots of plants and create a very beneficial relationship.

There are 2 kinds of compost tea basically as I see it. The good old fashioned kind, steeping compost, manure, or your favorite mix in water one way or another, and the other is actually an incubation process for the highly desirable microbes.

Years ago a gardening friend moved to an old split level house. The area he wanted to put his garden had very little topsoil, all clay. Under part of the house there was a nice deep layer of very friable soil that had received zero light or moisture for almost 50 years. So he hauled that out for his garden. It looked real good, except it was kind of a pale brown.

Nothing grew decently in his garden. The soil was dead. He did not know much about microbial activity. Heck, those words woulda made him laugh! But he knew the soil was dead. That's what he called it. He went and bought all kinds of stuff for it, store bought steer manure, bags of compost, things I did not see him use on it, and worked on it all that winter.

Next year his Okra and Cowbeans, as he called cowpeas in his panhandle of texas accent, grew real well. His only complaint by then was that the cowbeans "were californian" not Texan. He said they were supposed to be spotted. But his cowbean chile was always the best!!! He sliced the okra in it extra small for us californians.

Are you using an aquarium pump and bubble stone? I'll be interested in your results.