Hey guys, I plan on applying compost tea to my girls this upcoming round and am wondering if I am suppose to add calmag or not since I am using rainwater. In the TLO book, all the tea recipes have calmag but all the threads i've looked at say not to. Thanks!
TLO, is that the one with the layers and spikes? i recommend you forget everything you read in that book and mosey on to the no-till threads to learn about organic growing. No-Till Gardening - older thread but loaded with great info. read first 50 pages at least. No-Till Gardening: Revisited - newer revision with updated soil mix. dont waste your time making compost tea, it has been discussed plenty of times but the bottom line is in a soil rich with organic matter it is redundant at best. you are better off just top dressing the compost and watering it in. HTH
Awesome, i'll read through those threads today.. have a scooby snack on me hahaha. However, if my soil isn't the richest (just plan on mixing some compost, ewc, and ocean forest for this round) would you recommend using teas?
no id just top dress and water it in with. there is no real benefit brewing compost in container gardening. kelp and neem meal tea, or sprouted seed teas are what you want to use. also you can check my signature for a compilation of various posts and recipes, including kelp and neem teas.
I would add some aeration to that mix. Personally, I no longer use teas of any kind. Plain water, compost,mulch, and topdressing is all I need. That said, ive had many successful harvests using many different AACTs. Check out microbeorganics.com. He has a fish and an alfalfa based tea recipe. I have it broken down into tbs/gal written down if ya need it. There is some bad blood around here regarding certain AACT promoters and other prominent members. It does and will work as long as you do your part. I have no dog in this fight nor will I be selling you anything in a bottle! Just calling em like I see em.
Coconut water is awesomeness also! Did you know a coconut isnt a nut?You will grow 2 nodes in a day. Lol maybe i am stretching a bit but awesome stuff. Scooby is right. I keep thinking about purchasing nematodes and worms and all that jazz then i remember that all this will come around with time.
what is the purpose of AACT? isnt it to propagate the microbes within? what most people dont realize is that you need specialized equipment to properly breed microbes from compost. throwing a cup in a bucket with an aquarium air pump and stone is not going to do anything but mix the ingredients, you need oxygen above 6ppm to get the microbes to multiply. then you need some microbiology knowledge to know whats in it and when to stop the brew. but even if you have all that, thing is in container gardening, especially when the soil is already full of organic matter, there is already a saturation of microbial life. AACT has its uses outdoors but even Elaine Ingham, the compost tea guru said she doesnt recommend it for container gardening.
I have heard many skilled gardener dicount compost teas as a waste. If you actually make a compost brewer it works as scooby said but the process of cooking is when you populate your living soil. If you use a no cook soil like in no till it just takes time.
I have heard that compost tea is a fix for hot soil as youre trying to overpopulate the anaerobic microbes with aerobic. I know my soil is a bit hot.
sounds like broscience... its actually the opposite, aerobic microbes are the ones who decompose organic matter and produce heat.
Scooby, I prefaced that last post by saying I use no teas at all. Im way too lazy for that shit. I have followed MMs instructions to the 'tea' in the past. There were many observable microorganisms under the microscope. Some of which are identified with Latin names on his site. I never went down that rabbithole. My plants were happy. The OP wanted to know if he could use a bagged soil and compost teas to get a crop? Sure could, been there done that. Is it the way I would do it now? Hell no.
all good my friend. im just repeating what has been said before. but wouldnt you agree that even with a bagged soil it would benefit him more to top dress that compost? or at the most make a slurry? at least from the point of view of doing less.
No worries man. I'm just trying to be more open minded. MMs recipes are fish hydrolyslate heavy and the other is alfalfa heavy. We both know either one with some kelp can do the job. Like you said though banging around nutrients essentially.
An example of a non cooked soil would be bagged soils right? I thought you did have to cook the ingredients in a no till soil? Thanks for all the replies
When you hear the term "I need to let my soil cook" it simply means they are letting it sit for a certain amount of time. When amendments (especially N) are added to a fresh soil mix, thermophilic composting can occur. The temperature of the soil heats up and hence you "cook'' your soil. Stoner terminology