I got to tell you, I’m still a bit lost. Can you give me a step by step for charging w tea? I read your post above but for me doing this for the first time, I found it a little confusing. I need to activate about 2.5 gallons of biochar. I can most likely do it in the soil mixture but I’m really interested in learning how to charge it with teas. Also, I have local chicken compost and my own ewc, what else do I need to cut into that part of my soil to even it out? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
If you compost your biochar to activate, it will take a couple weeks at the minimum. If you brew a tea then innoculate your char with it, it will take a few days. Typically a tea is brewed, what kind is up to you, then the tea dumped on top of the biochar in a seperate bucket and left to ferment, or an airstone can be added to keep everything aerobic and safer. The purpose of it is to get as much microbiology as possible anchored into the pores of the biochar before it goes into the soil. Chicken manure alone may be way too high in N to use as a large part of the mix. It really depends how well the C/N ratio was hit while they were composting. As far as EWC they will get muddy over time if you do not have enough aeration. Quality inputs from many sources also makes a huge difference in castings, for example homemade vs commercially store bought. You may do well to put one more source of compost in there, whether store bought or local, to try to even out your C/N ratio before making your mix. Do you know what else was composted in with the chicken manure? Sent from my SM-N975U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Thank you. I can better understand the process now. Once it is charged and ready, im assuming that I just strain it off and add the char to the soil mix? Do I discard the tea mixture or use it to wet down the soil mixture? As far as the chicken compost, it is from a neighbor that says it’s been composting in her chicken yard for 10 years. Like you said, I was told on another thread that chicken compost should be cut with something else because of the high nitrogen. So would a cow manure compost work well? Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
If you decide to ferment anaerobically, I wouldn't add it to your soil. As far as animal manure, they typically all run high in N and then fall off after a month or two, but really depends what they were fed. I would try to source more of a plant based compost to cover all your bases Sent from my SM-N975U using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I used three buckets for 5 gallons of Biochar and 5 gallons of tea. Charging Biochar : Ingredients http://livingwebfarms.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Conditioning-Biochar.pdf 1/2 cup Sprouted Alfalfa Seeds, blended into a pastor 1/2 cup Banana FFJ 1 cup Lactobacillus 1 cup EWC 1/2 cup Chicken Manure 1 cup Kelp Meal 5 gallons of water Mix all the dry ingredients and split between two buckets half full. Place airstones In bucket and brew for 24-48 hrs. Careful, this is a very active tea. Once brewed, dump 1/2 the Biochar into each bucket and stir to saturate. I think that will start inoculating and charge the Biochar with nutrients
Cow and horse manure is decent because most do a good bit of grazing and in Winter will eat mixes of bailed hay, dimpled corn and shredded stalks and of course oats. Usually cattle and horses also have had some supplementing. I see a lot of horse/cow manure offered locally, but I would rather it have been through an earth worms digestive system. Mine is doing it’s cooking in large 15-20 gallon bins, with a few worms in each. They will die off, and the N, might rise for a bit temporarily, but that works fine when plants are vegging. If you look on YouTube there is some horticulture professor out of Buffalo State University that makes up a big batch of EWC/other good stuff tea. He uses basic cheesecloth, but he explains it fairly well. As for now I plan on massaging in any needed additions to the top and it will make its way where needed as long as the microbes are thriving. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Soil Recipe is complete - Thank you guys! I still have a bunch of amendments left over, Wondering if there’s a thread already going for topdress & compost tea recipes for the 3 stages of the plant cycle. Is it better to keep on buying each amendment individually and mix or go with an all purpose fertilizer? (BioLive/Gaia green) I’m a bit torn. Am I just running my pockets or will I see the yield in the long run? really just want to maintain these baby’s while not breaking the bank. First year growing so my upfront costs were pretty high, not complaining just wanna be efficient !
Thanks, those suggestions make things much easier for me to work with. I appreciate the responses. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
The whole point of creating this living soil is that you can mulch up your fan leaves and such and put the leftover nutrients will go back into the living soil. Living soil is more about keeping a happy bio system down with the roots. Then you should just need to add water. When it in between grows you can feed stuff like some used coffee grounds back into the soil, but all the elements should stay in your dirt for the most part. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
That sounds like one hell of a tea! You can also use fish hydrolosate, it’s much more simple and easier to source. I’ve used Neptune’s in the past, and I let it soak for less than a week. Seemed to work fine.
Walmart and other market Organic Garden Mix or similar that are simply composted poultry liter and feather meal, and I use now for years. I get most my amendments at big boxes in the fall for cheap. Blood Meal and Bone Meal and other organic get marked down in August.
I'm having trouble finding decent composts in the area, anyone using mushroom manure compost with no EWC? I'd like to avoid ordering EWC online if I can
Last time I took the whole nine yards approach. This time all I'm doing is a blend of compost I got from a farmer and forest soil from my land. Wish me luck.
Hey there I'm just looking to double check putting my soil together because I believe I ran into some nutrient lock up mixing my own soil last time. I'm looking to do four, 7 gallon pots. I have: Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss Perlite EWC (Only 2g worth, very hard to find now) Recipe says I need one third? So I need 9g of compost? I have some of this organic matter, leaf compost? At least that's what it seems to be I'm not sure exactly how useable it is or not. Can I use this to supplement the rest of the humus? I have Gaia Green Power Bloom fert (2-8-4), will this work or should i use like the Gaia Green All Purpose (4-4-4) Glacial Rock Dust Kelp Meal Alfala Meal Anyone have some suggestions things I need or can I use what I have to make some soil? Also curious if this lime is the correct kind, don't see anything about fast acting stuff on it but idk.
Good luck with your new mix forty winks. This year my cucumbers,squash and melons were all grown in just my compost and some perlite. They are all doing great so far.
Hi Tim, I ended up repotting and added some composted mushroom manure. The plant looks a little stunted tbh. The weather here has been cold and rainy until yesterday and I hope with this new sunnier forecast it’ll pick up speed. I’m also wondering if it isn’t an auto, which would be great.