Detlor Poultry
Attractive To Bees
Wow, guys. I seriously just throw some old poo in a bucket full of water and leave it for a month.... had no idea it was so complicated. I didn't know compost had the ability to do aerobics 
Compost Tea ?
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897tgigvib
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Yes, you just do not want your compost doing anti-aerobics.
We make a compost tea and it involves our worm casting, sea kelp, etc. We use a vortex brewer. Compost tea is a living solution. It is the act of growing beneficial microbes in an aerated solution with food sources and mineral catalysts.
When fed and aerated, beneficial bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and all of their microscopic friends contained in the soil food web begin to replicate to extraordinary concentrations.
Compost tea is both a fertilizer and a living solution. The fertilizer comes from the food sources (Earth Syrup, Earth Kelp) and mineral catalysts (Earth Tonic) and the living solution, or microbes, come from the biological inoculant (Earth Compound).
Compost tea can be created in unlimited ways. There is still so much left to discover. Start with our recommendations, years of research and trial & error have gone into creating our formulas. Rest assured your garden has never seen anything like it.
http://positiveorganicliving.com/compost-tea
We offer Compost Tea in a box if anyone is interested...I love it, I am going to be doing some trials with it this year and show the comparisons!
When fed and aerated, beneficial bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and all of their microscopic friends contained in the soil food web begin to replicate to extraordinary concentrations.
Compost tea is both a fertilizer and a living solution. The fertilizer comes from the food sources (Earth Syrup, Earth Kelp) and mineral catalysts (Earth Tonic) and the living solution, or microbes, come from the biological inoculant (Earth Compound).
Compost tea can be created in unlimited ways. There is still so much left to discover. Start with our recommendations, years of research and trial & error have gone into creating our formulas. Rest assured your garden has never seen anything like it.
http://positiveorganicliving.com/compost-tea
We offer Compost Tea in a box if anyone is interested...I love it, I am going to be doing some trials with it this year and show the comparisons!
MontyJ
Deeply Rooted
What I'm about to say is not supported by any scientific evidence that I know of. It comes directly from other discussions I have been a part of as a competition grower. In certain arenas, this can become a very heated topic similar to religion or politics.
Compost tea is a touchy subject. As you can see, there have already been several brewing methods and recipes posted. In the scientific community, I think the jury is still out. I know in the past, commercial growers were advised against its use because of the danger of contamination by anaerobic bacteria (primarily e-coli), especially if foliar feeding, which is the most common application of compost tea. That danger is increased if manure is used in an anaerobic brewing recipe. The most common method of anaerobic brewing is the dump the manure in a bucket of water and wait a couple of weeks method. Daily stirring will not provide enough oxygen to prevent e-coli from forming.
Anyway, the benefits are argued by many.
The proponents argue that properly brewed aerobic compost tea applied as a drench provides beneficial microbes to the soil. They also believe that foliar feeding provides additional nutrients to the plant, if done at the correct time of day. The theory is, during the warmer parts of the day when the stomata are open, the nutrients can enter the plants leaves directly, bypassing the root absorption process. It is also believed that the microbes applied to the leaves act as a defense against disease.
Opponents believe that the beneficial microbes die as soon as the water from the tea evaporates. They also believe that any nutrient taken in by foliar application is minimal at best. Their belief is that the CEC of the humus in the compost will not release the cations simply because it's emmersed in aggitated water. Of course, that only applies to Calcium, Potassium, and Magnesium, it says nothing of other nutrients that may be present such as Boron or Zinc.
I have used compost tea in the past and tested it (most unscientifically mind you). I only ran the test on pumpkin plants, as I will not take even the smallest chance of contaminating my families food. I gave some plants both drenches and foliar applications, while others received no compost tea. The compost tea treated plants did not outperform the non-treated plants in growth or production, but I did discover one thing. The treated plants suffered a great reduction in the severity of powdery mildew. I don't attribute this to the beneficial microbes, but rather an altering of the pH level of the surface of the plant, making it a hostile environment to the fungus.
If you want to make compost tea, here are some pics of a brewer I made years ago. It worked very well.
If you are going to foliar feed vegetables, I would recommend a mix of compost, alfalfa meal, molasses and Alaska fish oil. If you are going to use compost, make sure it doesn't contain manure. The aerobic brewing system should probably prevent the formation of e-coli, but I can't guarantee it.
Compost tea is a touchy subject. As you can see, there have already been several brewing methods and recipes posted. In the scientific community, I think the jury is still out. I know in the past, commercial growers were advised against its use because of the danger of contamination by anaerobic bacteria (primarily e-coli), especially if foliar feeding, which is the most common application of compost tea. That danger is increased if manure is used in an anaerobic brewing recipe. The most common method of anaerobic brewing is the dump the manure in a bucket of water and wait a couple of weeks method. Daily stirring will not provide enough oxygen to prevent e-coli from forming.
Anyway, the benefits are argued by many.
The proponents argue that properly brewed aerobic compost tea applied as a drench provides beneficial microbes to the soil. They also believe that foliar feeding provides additional nutrients to the plant, if done at the correct time of day. The theory is, during the warmer parts of the day when the stomata are open, the nutrients can enter the plants leaves directly, bypassing the root absorption process. It is also believed that the microbes applied to the leaves act as a defense against disease.
Opponents believe that the beneficial microbes die as soon as the water from the tea evaporates. They also believe that any nutrient taken in by foliar application is minimal at best. Their belief is that the CEC of the humus in the compost will not release the cations simply because it's emmersed in aggitated water. Of course, that only applies to Calcium, Potassium, and Magnesium, it says nothing of other nutrients that may be present such as Boron or Zinc.
I have used compost tea in the past and tested it (most unscientifically mind you). I only ran the test on pumpkin plants, as I will not take even the smallest chance of contaminating my families food. I gave some plants both drenches and foliar applications, while others received no compost tea. The compost tea treated plants did not outperform the non-treated plants in growth or production, but I did discover one thing. The treated plants suffered a great reduction in the severity of powdery mildew. I don't attribute this to the beneficial microbes, but rather an altering of the pH level of the surface of the plant, making it a hostile environment to the fungus.
If you want to make compost tea, here are some pics of a brewer I made years ago. It worked very well.
If you are going to foliar feed vegetables, I would recommend a mix of compost, alfalfa meal, molasses and Alaska fish oil. If you are going to use compost, make sure it doesn't contain manure. The aerobic brewing system should probably prevent the formation of e-coli, but I can't guarantee it.
897tgigvib
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Several years ago I used a compost tea brewer system made by a company in Alaska. The company was called Alaska.
This was a complete system that came in a 5 gallon bucket. It came with a small fish tank type aerator attached to a ring that set in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket. When being brewed, it made little tiny micro sized bubbles of air, lots and lots.. There was a bag it came with that was dangled in the water. The bag was filled with a mix of things that came in separate bags. The main part of the mix was a special compost from the Alaska forest floor. That smelled a lot like fungus. There was also a bag of Root Web, and several other bags. Once put together and brewing it was kept as close to 85 degrees as possible, so I brewed it near the gas heater with a couple louvres aimed down at it. It also came with premade solutions to use.
I was growing tomatoes and also nursing 23 guava trees back to health. This was at my first job after returning to california from montana. the main part of the job was growing wheatgrass for juice. The owner was kind of, well, into charisma and I guess snobbery, but nice and thought she was tricky about it, lol. I was the only english speaking employee so maybe that's what gave me the way to notice these things the others, except probably Christian, didn't notice. Anyhow, she wanted to expand to heirloom tomatoes, and she wanted me to revive the small guava trees that were near death.
This operation was at a large site of old almost defunct greenhouses in Santa Rosa. The Tomatoes were container grown, and I started over 3,600 of them. From my seeds. The soil I had to use was the pile of used potting soil that a previous operation at the greenhouse site left. It was mainly used and degraded peat moss. Yea. Acidic to say the least. Though it was too late to change the ph over time the right way, I did purchase several boxes of different kinds of Lime.
Most of the seedlings started and grew well, and those which did not I had extras to replace with. They mostly did that colorful stemmed growth tomatoes do when in strong soil. Almost all of them snapped out of that when I began using the prebottled Alaska mix. When that ran out I began using the home brewed mix diluted down 10 to 1.
These little tomato plants grew huge root systems that bound the cells, and then the 4" pots, and then the gallon pots as they were uppotted. As I was in process of getting them into 5 gallon pots the owner hired some goofy kid to be so called manager, I think because he walked around with a laptop and he thought he could speak english. Anyhow, he got into a fist fight with one of the other employees, and that scared the crap out of me, so I was out of there, soon to be up here at the lake.
I did visit them that August. She only had one employee trying to do everything. He barely splashed water on the tomato plants every other day, but doggone, they were loaded down and needed picking! This guy communicated to me that he thought there was something wrong with some of the tomatoes: Some of them were "blanco, malo". He'd never seen white tomatoes.
That Alaska tea brewer I felt helped the roots grow huge and strong. I believe that helped the plants overcome the acidic potting mix. I don't know for sure, but I really thought the seedlings would be failures. Determination and trying something new seemed to work, at least that time.
I did not even think of e coli contamination, but I can say it was brewed with tons of micro air bubbles, at least apparently very aerobic. Probably the root web was the best part of the ingredients, but they had a whole long list of latin names of fungi and bacteria that were beneficial in it.
This was a complete system that came in a 5 gallon bucket. It came with a small fish tank type aerator attached to a ring that set in the bottom of the 5 gallon bucket. When being brewed, it made little tiny micro sized bubbles of air, lots and lots.. There was a bag it came with that was dangled in the water. The bag was filled with a mix of things that came in separate bags. The main part of the mix was a special compost from the Alaska forest floor. That smelled a lot like fungus. There was also a bag of Root Web, and several other bags. Once put together and brewing it was kept as close to 85 degrees as possible, so I brewed it near the gas heater with a couple louvres aimed down at it. It also came with premade solutions to use.
I was growing tomatoes and also nursing 23 guava trees back to health. This was at my first job after returning to california from montana. the main part of the job was growing wheatgrass for juice. The owner was kind of, well, into charisma and I guess snobbery, but nice and thought she was tricky about it, lol. I was the only english speaking employee so maybe that's what gave me the way to notice these things the others, except probably Christian, didn't notice. Anyhow, she wanted to expand to heirloom tomatoes, and she wanted me to revive the small guava trees that were near death.
This operation was at a large site of old almost defunct greenhouses in Santa Rosa. The Tomatoes were container grown, and I started over 3,600 of them. From my seeds. The soil I had to use was the pile of used potting soil that a previous operation at the greenhouse site left. It was mainly used and degraded peat moss. Yea. Acidic to say the least. Though it was too late to change the ph over time the right way, I did purchase several boxes of different kinds of Lime.
Most of the seedlings started and grew well, and those which did not I had extras to replace with. They mostly did that colorful stemmed growth tomatoes do when in strong soil. Almost all of them snapped out of that when I began using the prebottled Alaska mix. When that ran out I began using the home brewed mix diluted down 10 to 1.
These little tomato plants grew huge root systems that bound the cells, and then the 4" pots, and then the gallon pots as they were uppotted. As I was in process of getting them into 5 gallon pots the owner hired some goofy kid to be so called manager, I think because he walked around with a laptop and he thought he could speak english. Anyhow, he got into a fist fight with one of the other employees, and that scared the crap out of me, so I was out of there, soon to be up here at the lake.
I did visit them that August. She only had one employee trying to do everything. He barely splashed water on the tomato plants every other day, but doggone, they were loaded down and needed picking! This guy communicated to me that he thought there was something wrong with some of the tomatoes: Some of them were "blanco, malo". He'd never seen white tomatoes.
That Alaska tea brewer I felt helped the roots grow huge and strong. I believe that helped the plants overcome the acidic potting mix. I don't know for sure, but I really thought the seedlings would be failures. Determination and trying something new seemed to work, at least that time.
I did not even think of e coli contamination, but I can say it was brewed with tons of micro air bubbles, at least apparently very aerobic. Probably the root web was the best part of the ingredients, but they had a whole long list of latin names of fungi and bacteria that were beneficial in it.
897tgigvib
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All the Guava trees lived. They did not flower, but had nice healthy growth. When I first saw them I thought most would die.
ducks4you
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I have a book that suggests only two pieces of equipment
--10 gallon (like Lowe's) plastic paint bucket
and
--lid, preferably and wooden one bc it breathes, but the plastic ones you can buy that fit your bucket works well, too. It will fit loosely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCbeALuAYsg
Take compost, put it in a bucket, fill the rest with water, stir it everyday and it's done in a few days. My book suggested one week. You can also make a teabag out of burlap, and hang it from the top with a branch you just pruned from your fruit trees, which is what you SHOULD be doing about now!!
Try making it and you'll figure out how strong to make it. You WILL want to dilute it with fresh water before applying it to your plants.
This is a NO WASTE exercise bc if you don't like it you add it to your compost pile and try again.
I'm gonna be making some in the next few weeks to feed the asparagus I put in last year.
The end product reminds me of puddles in my horse's turnout area. =b
--10 gallon (like Lowe's) plastic paint bucket
and
--lid, preferably and wooden one bc it breathes, but the plastic ones you can buy that fit your bucket works well, too. It will fit loosely.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCbeALuAYsg
Take compost, put it in a bucket, fill the rest with water, stir it everyday and it's done in a few days. My book suggested one week. You can also make a teabag out of burlap, and hang it from the top with a branch you just pruned from your fruit trees, which is what you SHOULD be doing about now!!
Try making it and you'll figure out how strong to make it. You WILL want to dilute it with fresh water before applying it to your plants.
This is a NO WASTE exercise bc if you don't like it you add it to your compost pile and try again.
I'm gonna be making some in the next few weeks to feed the asparagus I put in last year.
The end product reminds me of puddles in my horse's turnout area. =b
