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Manchester,N.H.

I am new to compost tea. I plan on making 15 gallons at a time. I have built a brewer thats is similar to Thadd Starr's. I just bought an 112 Watt air pump that does 110 liters per minute. I plan on starting with a basic recipe that contains Worm castings, Molasses, Alfalfa meal, and Kelp meal. My question is how much of each should I put in. I was planning on going with

2 cups of worm castings
2 cups of alfalfa meal
1 cup of molasses
1/2 cup of kelp meal

Does this sound ok. If not what are your sugguestions.

6/8/2009 10:00:15 PM

Topeka, Kansas

i might suggest 8-10 cups of castings, everything else looks good

6/8/2009 11:56:42 PM

Winston Salem NC

some of your soil from the patch would be a good addition to help increase the microbes already in your native soil.

6/9/2009 12:34:50 AM

Bloomington, IN

Rick, would adding patch soil increase the chance of pathogens getting on the plant?

6/9/2009 1:42:20 PM

Westford, MA

Hey Dennis
Sounds like a nice clean brew.
I've been doing about the same on a 5 Gal. scale.
1C. molasses
2C. Alfafa
1C Kelp
1C. Worm
I had been adding soil, then I somewhere in here about
how it might be adding "bad" stuff by adding the unknown.

Saw your diary.
Plants are looking good.
Your son Dylan kicking a-- and taking names??
I hope he's still taller than the weeds.

Hope to see you on the 23rd at the twilight tour.
Gorw Big.
kevin

6/9/2009 1:47:20 PM

Winston Salem NC

If you have had disease in the patch it very well could be possible.

6/9/2009 3:18:05 PM

canal winchester ohio

If your burying your vines you might want to avoid the molasses in your tea as it might cause the base of the stalks to rot. I always add a little humic acid to my tea as well as mix the worm compost & some baby food oatmeal together a couple of days before brewing to form some good fungi for your plant.
And I'm with Kevin about NOT adding your soil to your brew.

6/9/2009 3:34:34 PM

Seattle, WA

Hmmmm...personally I'd cut back on the foods a bit. We use a 51 liter/min pump for our 5 gal. brewer, but a friend of mine discovered you want to have .08 cfm/gal. for good aerobic tea (provided the proper recipe as well).

In terms of compost amounts, we use 1 gal. of total compost (from 2-3 different sources) in a 20-28 gal. brew and 1 heaping cup of compost in a 5 gal. brew. I haven't done testing on a 15 gal. amount but it would fall somewhere in between. I always think it better to err on the side of too much compost, provided it's staying agitated in the brewer.

klancy,
I think you have way too much foods for the size of the container and may be brewing anaerobes. It would be near impossible to keep the tea aerobic based on the amount of foods you're adding. Typically, Dr. Ingham recommends 1-2 teaspoons of unsulfured blackstrap molasses, and the same with the kelp. We've tested adding 1 Tablespoon of organic alfalfa meal along with our food source, and found this to increase microbial growth.

Best thing for both of you would be to consider a microscope. Let me know if you ever decide to go that route, I may be able to help you out in that regard.

Cheers,
Tad

6/9/2009 3:44:03 PM

Oklahoma State Record Holder

What would be a good recipe for 50 gals?

6/9/2009 4:51:54 PM

Manchester,N.H.

Tad,
So I should increase the amount of worm castings and decrease the amount of everything else.

6/9/2009 8:15:49 PM

Seattle, WA

That's what I would do.

In 50 gals. we use 1.5 gal - 2 gal. of total compost. You can always throw a handful of good soil from your patch in there as well, provided you don't have any disease issues.

I can't give as good of info. on foods because we use a granulated foods that has a bunch of organic ingredients in it already and I don't have the amounts in raw materials. I can tell you that we use 4 c. of our "foods," 1/2 c. of Tera Vita SP-85 humic acid, and 1 c. of organic alfalfa meal as part of our 50 gal. recipe.

6/9/2009 8:23:46 PM

President - GPC

Tad......WiZ iZ wanting to do the Pepsi vs Coke test again this year...details to come...

6/10/2009 9:00:11 AM

Westford, MA

WOW! Sounds like I'd better go on a diet.
With those amounts I've got enough supplies to last a couple years.
Thanks Tad

6/10/2009 9:36:06 AM

Seattle, WA

Wiz,

Just let me know and we can go over the shipping instructions one more time and hopefully US Mail won't lose the package again!

klancy,

Feel free to give me a call at 206-351-3011 if you want to chat about your specific brewer.

6/10/2009 2:31:00 PM