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Garden State Pumpkins

I've seen many growers are using teas. I've been searching the internet and have seen several kinds. Some now have aerators in them? I guess my question is how to set up this process and what the normal gestation period is...Can the Tea be "seeded" with a commercial product like Companion to encourage a strengthened batch...or is that just nuts! Also noted that some chop up seaweed to add to the process? Any advise would be appreciated!!! Chuck

3/4/2003 8:53:04 AM

In the shade - PDX, OR

Chuck - I have done some research on compost tea. This is the one that needs to be aerated. The "good bacteria" are aerobic and need a good oxygen source in which to thrive and multiply. The molasses is the food source. Takes a couple few days in which to brew the tea. This allows enought time for the beneficial bacteria to multiply.
I don't have the links here with me but the best explanation that I found on the web was on the Tauton Press site. There is a good one on "Askjeeves.com" a 1, 2 3 explanation.

As for the seaweed question - Who knows.
I was just going to use seaweed powder in the fert injector on a bi-weekly schedule. I think the principles are the same with applying beneficial nutrients to so that the bad ones don't have a place to land.

3/4/2003 4:06:40 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Thanks Ceis...Will do some more looking...This is another good one for the "How To" articles for us city slickers to learn! will check jeeves! Chuck

3/4/2003 4:36:40 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Chuck,

I very much want to comment on this but I can't do it justice. Compost Tea's are without question, good in some scenarios. It appears they can be antifungal among some other things. BUT....there has been far too little published & peer reviewed studies on the subject to date. Until the beneficial organisms are identified & proven to work, I can't accept these claims in good conscience. We know they work. I just doubt that these "brewers" are producing a consistant batch every time. I've challenged the marketers at conferences to name the beneficial organisms & to provide data to no avail.
It's exciting stuff who's time will come. I just don't yet feel that it has. YET.

3/4/2003 7:19:51 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

I hear ya Steve but I'm sorta gonna try everything. I guess that's why I added if I could charge the soup with GB03...but first I have to learn how to make the soup...After losing 2 years to fusaria I'm determined not to allow it into the new patch. if there is anyway I can get the good stuff established I'm gonna try it! I know I'll have some problems this year because of all the leaves but if I can get it going next year I'll be better off. thanks for all the help and emails guys! Chuck

3/4/2003 9:58:44 PM

Cornwall UK.(50N 5W)300ft.

Chuck,My grandfather used to fill a hessian sack with sheep manure and hang it in a pan of water and feed his Tomatoes with the tea not sure if this is the sort of thing you had in mind though.

3/5/2003 3:43:52 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

It is similar.
The units I have seen are these crazy oprn topped polyethylene tanks. About 60-100 gallons. There's often an aerator in it like a fish tank. A synthetic burlap bag (like a poly woven seed bag) is loaded with compost. Then it's hung from a reciprocating articulating arm. A small AC motor turns the thing so that the bag is dunked in & out of the water.
They sell these "compost starters" & molasses based conditioners for about 6-8 times regular retail to add to the bag. Good business if you can find it.
At a seminar, I asked the maufacturer of one such (famous name among the compost tea crowd) brewer what he would place in the bag. He suggested municipal compost. I suggested that the content of said compost could range widely in content from time to time. He assured me that his propietary additives would correct any & all such sins.
So then I asked what would happen if there were clopyralid tainted grass clipping in the compost. At this point he made a subtle signal to an attractive young liberal woman. She made a few hand gestures & I was sorrounded by more women who loudly proclaimed all the advantages of compost tea at a volume & tempo that drowned out my thoughts. Amazing marketing technique.
I've sent them 3 emails asking for published university data. I have yet to recieve a response.

Again. I know that these things work. A little. Others like Seawwed & Fish emulsions work much better & on these I can demonstrate peer reviewed data. As soon as I have the names of some solid organisms & their relationship to higher plants is identified, I'll pay more attention. If actual field studies are done & replicated & published, I'll really listen.

Steve the skeptic!

3/5/2003 10:10:41 PM

Sloughhouse, CA

Steve your are not the skeptic - just want good scientific method,
I even got 4th graders to do this with science projects.

3/6/2003 12:03:25 AM

Garden State Pumpkins

Well I guess I don't mean to go that far...I was thinking more along a 5 gallon pail or 55 gallon drum for fertigation. But now that you mention that Steve why couldn't someone take a quart bottle of Companion and mix it in sterile waster seed it with molasses etc...brew it for a few days and extend that quart bottle to five gallons worth? Hey this stuff will grow in dirt! Geeze at 25 bucks a quart probably cost me hundred bucks for the microscope setup to see if it works...Just what I need another project....Anybody have a good dicvorce attorney?

3/6/2003 8:48:42 AM

Montoursville, PA

Alexsdad.....Your idea is fine. I have had a fifty five gallon drum tea or soup station for over forty years. Get your plastic drum and install a spigot at the bottom. For ease of draw off set the drum as high as you like designing the support as elaborately as using concrete blocks up to nice looking stone work. Add a home made stirring paddle or give a second life to a canoe paddle.

Now you get scientific. Put two shovels full of manure, of your choice into a synthetic feed bag and make a giant tea bag. Toss in the barrel of water. As you walk by daily you give the tea a stir. It can be that simple.

Now you can use your fresh fish waste run through a blender, your companion as a booster or starter, a hand full or two of lime if you stir up an odor, a little left over blood meal,kelp or fish meal, real kelp or fish...oh I did say fish. I ask and old indian and he said he had heard of using fish. Think you have the idea. You need not worry about the scope to look at the content. Just use it. I would consider this as a bonus to any other planned fertilizer use. I always use the excess by dumping it into my compost pile.

We always have onion tops and a few garlic popping up here and there. They get run through the blender. They may go into your tea or soup. Some feel they are offensive to some insects.

I have a second hand fish tank bubbler in my drum. Nothing scientific. Just know oxygen helps speed up the process. I still give it a stir once every day or more often in hot weather.

Three or four times in the past forty years I had a drum get stinky or out of control. When that happens I add more lime. If that does not work I dump the remains of that drum into the compost and start over.

Most of my regular use purchased organic water based fertilizers are purchased from Craig Lembke who sells the Agro.K organic products.Craig visits our chat board or can be reached at cjlemb@webTV.net

3/6/2003 11:28:17 AM