Compost Tea Question

Discussion in 'Growing Marijuana Outdoors' started by cosmicdavid, Jul 10, 2013.

  1. I've been a huge advocate and user/maker of compost tea for 6 years now and for the first time I've found a question that myself nor my direct group of friends and brothers and sisters in the scene have been able to supply a solid answer to so I present it to you folks. I don't break radio silence much on here and I've had a few different monikers but being that I live in Colorado now and I am well within my medical numbers that I no longer have the fear.
    A quick backstory is needed so circumstances and environmental information will already be in mind before my question itself is asked:
     
    About 3 weeks ago now I premixed myself a few batches of raw compost tea ingredients and put them into what I thought would be nifty ready-to-go teabags made of my wife's discarded panty hose. I was very proud of my minimalism in my tea ingredients this year as it is the least I've spent at a grow shop EVER. My ingredients for the year are only earth worm castings, mexican bat guano, jamaican bat guano, kelp meal and molasses. All but the molasses are premixed in said panty hose tea bags. Thinking that I needed to preserve a certain level of moisture in the hosiery as to avoid the mix from completely drying out and losing potency, I placed my teabags for veg in a plastic shopping bag, wrapped it up, placed the remaining flower teabags into my bag of remaining earth worm castings and placed the veg back ontop of those.
    Here is where it gets interesting. I understood that due to the fact that I was willing attempting to lock in moisture that I might cause some mold. I was right. Today, three weeks later, I opened up the bag of earth worm castings because I plan on making a batch of tea in a day or two, and not at all to my shock, I found some white fuzzy mold growing on my tea bags. Not much at all but enough for me to go "Huh. Look at that"
     
    My questions are as follows: Is this the wrong kind of mold and will it be caustic to my plants? I smelled the tea bags themselves and they DO NOT have any kind of bad smell nor any funk other than the regular to them that would indicate to me that they are starting to turn. I don't even know if you can smell an anaerobic teabag before its already made in the water and stinking to high hell.
    Is it a beneficial mold?
    Should I throw my tea bags out and just do the batches one at a time as I've been doing for the past 6 years?
    Do I need to throw out the bag of earth worm castings now?
     
    Any help at all would be appreciated as I am genuinely stumped as to how I need to proceed to get the desired results on this one.
    Thanks!
    CosmicDavid
     

     
  2. Thats good fungus its called santas beard.
     
  3. #3 cosmicdavid, Jul 11, 2013
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 11, 2013
    Care to elaborate? Or am I just being daft and not getting a joke?
     
  4. Other conditions to keep in mind:
    I live at around 7000 ft.
    my teabags are sitting in a bag of earthworm castings that resides in my basement as that is where i make all my tea anyways. I imagine that the inside of the bag of earth worm castings has a certain level of humidity already going on just due its general nature and the fact that its contained in a bag or a more or less sealed environment not letting much moisture out and not letting any air in.
    Please elaborate!
     
  5. Santas beard is the white fuzzy fungus that grows ongood organic soil or compost.
     
  6. it should be fine , its the start of the breakdown of your tea bags , a picture of the mold would be good though , why dont you get some kind of vacuum bag/jar device ...it may work better
     
  7. I don't have a way of taking and uploading photos *good and old school over here!* but the mold is white little fuzzy dots. Not even a large formation of it. Granto: you said it was just the teabags starting to breakdown. If the teabags I have made are meant to carry me through to the end of my season here *mid to late october* should I most definitely consider getting them in some kind of airtight container IE a jar as you suggested? Or will, not could, but WILL the mold be beneficial?
     
  8. Granto: Thank you very much! I'm going to do as you advised, though, and get them into an airtight container. If the earthworm castings in the teabags themselves dries out does it lose any of its magic? Would you happen to know about that? I'm under the impression that it does
     
  9. Well, I corralled the 8 bags *four veg, four flower* separated them from eachother *a bag for veg, a bag for flower tea bags* and then I put both bags into one larger bag, got all the air out and sealed it up. Let's see if this makes a difference! Pictures to follow and thank you for the assistance!! You're alright, Granto!
     
  10. If it looks like fuzzy white hairs, you have nothing to worry about. I have it grow when i use humidity dome and feed with tea. Also, once you start to brew the tea, if is it bad, the oxygenation of the tea will kill anything you dont want. If it transfers into your soil, place in direct sunlight to kill. It was on my soil for 2 months with no problems at all. And only from when i used tea. Same ingredients as you listed.
     

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