brewing compost tea anyone? giving it a whirl

this is what I have been doing for the past 2 years (with excellent results):

for a basic compost tea, you need 5 cups of worm compost (vermicompost), 5 cups of good topsoil from your garden or a wooded area, 5 heaped tablespoons of organic unsulphered blackstrap molasses.... all in a bucket with a decent sized aquarium airpump, 20-25 litres of water (rainwater is best and if you use tap water, you need to bubble it for 12 hours to remove chlorine), and an aquarium heater set at 20 degrees C .....

let it bubble and brew for 24 hrs then add it (undiluted) to your plants .... it should smell sweet and smell of soil .... if it smells sour/rotten, it has not worked and don't use it

the above is a basic recipe that I use and many people have their own recipes ....

I now 'supercharge' the compost tea by adding nutrients such as biobizz fishmix, rootgrow root food (humic and fulvic acids .... it's not the same stuff as Rootgrow Mycorrhizal fungi), alfalfa, seaweed extract, bloodmeal etc ... If you have made your own compost from kitchen waste, add a bit of that aswell.... most of the nutrients/ingredients can be bought off ebay or your local hydroponic store ....

no need for a stocking, I just add all the contents to a bucket (you have to be carefull with which bucket you use due to the plastic its made of .... I use a beer brewers bucket

everyone has their own recipe and everyone is still learning ...

hey Dim,

Thanks for that , yea i added some seaweed extract too & I`m going to make my own fish emulsion & also add some rock dust next month. What would you say would be of next importance for me to add? I hav`nt been doing this for long, don`t know much about nutrition for plants :

Stu

what you need to remember is that when brewing compost tea, you are not making a fertilizer (you are multiplying the beneficial organisims that feed the roots/plants and nourish the soil)

so, the basic requirements are a good compost (many use vermicompost (worm compost), good water such as rainwater, food for the micro-organisms (organic unsulphered blackstrap molasses), lots of oxygen and heat, plus time

I add extras to 'supercharge' the compost tea .... here is a very good article explaining the process and the concept:
----------------------------------------------------------

Soil Food Web Gardening
...with compost teas


...(text from the book, "Teaming with Microbes" written by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis)
...any questions or comments about the book are welcome, I'd love to discuss it.
...+ REP if you like.



....the 19 rules!
1) Some plants prefer soils dominated by fungi; others prefer soils dominated by bacteria.
2) Most vegetables, annuals, and grasses prefer their nitrogen in nitrate form and do best in bacterially dominated soils.
3) Most trees, shrubs, and perennials prefer their nitrogen in ammonium form and do best in fungal dominated soils.
4) Compost can be used to inoculate beneficial microbes and life into soils around your yard and introduce, maintain, or alter the soil food web in a particular area.
5) Adding compost/ compost teas and its soil food web to the surface of soil will inoculate the soil with the same soil food web.
6) Aged, brown organic materials support fungi; fresh, green organic materials support bacteria.
7) Mulch laid on the surface tends to support fungi; mulch worked into the soil tends to support bacteria.
If you wet and grind mulch thoroughly, it speeds up bacterial colonization.
9) Coarse, dryer mulches support fungal activity.
10) Sugars help bacteria multiply and grow; kelp, humic and fulvic acids, and phosphate rock dusts help fungi grow.
11) By choosing the compost you begin with and what nutrients you add to it, you make teas that are heavily fungal, bacterially dominated, or balanced.
12) Compost teas are very sensitive to chlorine and preservatives in the brewing water and ingredients.
13) Applications of synthetic fertilizers kill off most or all of the soil food web microbes.
14) Stay away from additives that have high NPK numbers.
15) Follow any chemical spraying or soil drenching with an application of compost tea.
16) Most conifers and hardwood trees (birch, oak, beech, and hickory) form mycorrhizae with ectomycorrhizal fungi.
17) Most vegetables, annuals, grasses, shrubs, softwood trees, and perennials form mycorrhizae with endomycorrhizal fungi.
1 Rototilling and excessive soil disturbance destroy or severely damage the soil food web.
19) Always mix endomycorrhizal fungi with the seeds of annuals and vegetables at planting time or apply them to roots at transplanting time.



Compost Tea---- Compost tea puts the microbiology back into soils. It's a good thing because there's some practical problems associated with the other 2 options, compost and mulches. Besides the effort of turning a compost pile, if you have a decent-sized garden and lots of trees and shrubs, carting compost and mulches around and applying them can be hard work. You also have to have lots and lots of both if you are working on anything but a small yard. But what are the chief problems with compost and mulches? They take a while to reach the rhizosphere. And neither mulch nor compost sticks to leaves. Plants generate exudates from their leaves, attracting bacteria and fungi to the phyllosphere, the area immediately around the leaf surfaces. As in the rhizosphere, these microbes compete with pathogens for space and food and in some cases can protect the leaf surfaces from attack. You cannot immediately introduce this microbiology into the rhizosphere, or into the phyllosphere at all, with compost or mulch.
Actively aerated compost teas, on the other hand, are usually easy to apply---both soil and leaf surfaces---and are put right where they are needed. They are a fast, inexpensive, and definitely fascinating way to manage soil food web microbiology in your yard and gardens, handily overcoming the limitations of compost and mulch.


What AACT is not

Do not confuse actively aerated compost tea with compost leachates, compost extracts, or manure teas, all of which have been employed by farmers and gardeners for centuries.
Compost leachate is the liquid that oozes out of compost when it is pressed or when water runs through it and leaches out. Sure, these concoctions get a bit of color and may have some nutrient value, but leachates do little to impart microbial life to your soils: the bacteria and fungi in compost are attached to organic matter and soil particles with biological glues; they don't simply wash off.
Compost extract is what you get when you soak compost in water for a couple weeks or more. The end result is an anaerobic soup with perhaps a bit of aerobic activity on the surface. The loss of aerobic microbial diversity alone (not to mention the risk of it's containing anaerobic pathogens and alcohols) suggests that compost extracts are not worth the effort. We don't consider it safe or advisable to use them.
Manure tea, created by suspending a bag of manure in water for several weeks, is also anaerobic. Using manure is asking fro pathogenic problems and, especially under anaerobic conditions, virtually assures the presence of E.coli. We want the beneficial microbes to be working in our soils and to get these; you have to keep things aerobic.

I've been using it for a couple of years too. The absence of foam suggests a lack of microbial activity, maybe your starter compost wasn't live enough or perhaps something contaminated the brew. I make it on the lotty in a plastic dustbin and aerate by whisking every so often with a big stick. The foam doesn't stay for long after each whisking but as the brew develops the bubbles look more viscous and last longer.
I also apply the same process using fresh sheep poo, the brassicas love that. Have you checked out Korean Natural Farming.

if there's no foam, that could be a sign that you have not added enough molasses, or that there is not enough air/oxygen being pumped into the brew

I checked some videos on youtube about Korean natural farming .... very interesting and I have learned new things .... will definately give it a try:



there are more parts to this youtube video, so if this subject interests you, check his other videos

Hi, thanks for your replies Mr Bones & Dim.

Mr bones yea i did wonder if the compost would be good enough, its one from wickes, it has good reviews though.
Dim thanks for the info, I`m making another brew now, added more molasses, what type are you using? i have meridian organic, its very thick though, to the point i have to heat up rainwater to mix it with. I also added an air stone to this brew which seems to be giving more bubbles.the first time i made it indoors, this time its outside, put the air hose through an air vent

Stu

p.s update it worked better this time, theres foam! just watered everything with it, crossing my fingers for extra growth!