Post your Organic Tea Recipe!

Hey HerbalMethod, I have a few questions for you please:

- what type of aquarium air pump would be good (how powerful?)
- I read it's important to use distilled or unchlorined:no chloramine tap water (not that I'm picky but seems important on some indoor forums). Maybe it's not a problem for outdoors guys like us!!!
- Do you dilute the tea or use it like that? Same concentration for foliar? If you could elaborate on the difference between foliar teas, regular teas and inoculant teas (just for the microbes).
- Would it be ok to use old compost or horse manures in the teas too? Or can this bring some bad types of bacteria (if you know!!??).(it's stuff I can get easily).

Thanks much man! I love it when it's simple and cheap. Hahaha! I don't want to buy bottled humic and fulvic acids on the net if I don't need to. I just want microbes for my micro herds, you know.

 

Thanks Cannabisblunt. That's the info. I needed. Everything you said makes perfect sense!

 

When u say every third watering 3 cups to 5 gallons of water, does that mean u pour a cup of this tea into a five gallon bucket filled with straight water, to dilute the tea, or does this mean something else???

thanks a little confused!!!

 

Some seem hell bent on the 24 hr brew and state at 36 it starts to loose its microbes.

There has not been any talk of brewing temps and brewing that i have seen here and that has everything to do with the growth of microbes,second to keeping the brew aerobic and not over feeding with carbs.

Do you guys use microscopes or is there another indicator you use to KNOW about how the micro herd is forming and breaking down?

 

A layer of foam starts to develop over the top of the tea.. then it's ready!

 

Okay...

In general for brewing temp, room temp is best.

And yeah, it gets slimy when it gets rich with microbes and forms s light foamy head to it.

Purified water is best. NON-CHLORINATED! I used reverse osmosis water from an indoor source but most people aren't so lucky to have a reverse osmosis system so if worse comes to worst...just leave some chlorinated water out for 24 hours well ventilated and it should be fine.

Generally for a foliar spray it's best not to add other manures. Even well composted you could be bringing in a completely new set of competing microbes. If you're gonna add other manures I recommend adding them to a mostly fertilizer tea and not a brewed tea.

In terms of watering down...The microbial effect can be effect up to 1/100th strength. However, this also breaks down the nutrient content to almost nothing. So it's up to you. If you're looking only to help the microbial environment of the soil and the plants then water it down to whatever strength you need it to spray down everything.

If you want it to fertilize as well then around 1/4th is what I always have done. Although, to be completely honest...If you're using ONLY vermicast in the brewed tea and no other nutrient, like guana, then it's really hard to over-fertilize. Mainly due to a low nitrogen content but also due to the way verimcast nutrient break down.

In terms of a pump...the size of the pump is relative to the size of the batch you are brewing. A small aquarium pump for a 5 gallon bucket is generally fine but if you were brewing, say, 100 gallons then a much lagrer GPH pump would be required. In general, as long as it aerates the water fairly uniformly it's fine. Too much agitation can hurt it but by too much I mean enough to cause it to bubble violently.


And as for knowing when it's breaking down...36 hours. If you feed it more nutrient in the proper amounts and add more water you CAN keep it alive indefinitely. But for the recipes posted and for not messing with it after you've initially started it....36 hours.

 

I just checked with my home brewing book, fermentation is best between 60 to 75 degrees F (15-24 C)..

 

Great. Thanks Herbalmethod.

 

Thanx guys.

Just a little info i have come across,tiny bubbles can hurt the microbes while medium bubbles are the best to brew with.

70-75F. is the standard temp and although some room temps are in the 80s and that would decrease the brewing time.

Be careful not to use a pump to transfer teas w/o knowing it is not cutting up good guys.

And using a fine sprayer nozzle can also hurt the microbes,use a concrete sprayer if possible to keep everyone in tact.

 

bump???

 

Yep,thats it,its concentrated a bunch.

 

i wanna make a worm casting, molasses, and kelp tea but where do i get the kelp?

should i get extract or cubes or powder or granules... get it at fish stores? or what

 

Check out this web site especially if you ae in eastren canada or north eastren us. They sell worm castings which are great quality and compost teas and brewers. they also sell the mixes for compost tea if you don't have good compost or want try it and know what you have in the end.

I actually use alot there products in my real job and they are excelent.

One really intresting thing they do test you compost. As I understand any food wed related company will do this. I highly advise this once in a while. Your tea is only as good as your compost and ingredents . The current regulation for compost are not that stringent world wide although they have made some substantial improvments in the past few years. Often what you buy is not that good and if you making it your self you never know how good it is.

Jolly Farmer Products, Inc

 

What is a good organic tea to make just for seedlings under 4 weeks old? When and how should it be applied to the plant?

 

I highly advise getting a wrom farm. The quality of the castings is awsome. I dont know what comercial makers use, but coco and coffee grounds are awesome. That stomer from terra cycle, I know, uses bread and other scraps. Intersting fact, I saw them make terra cycle worm castings and they used chlorinated water and let it evaporate out with the castings already mixed! Looked wrong to my ass, but who knows.

Thanks for the info on bubble size. + Reps there as like most I beleive I was using the smallest I could find like I would have in DWC. I will spread that kindly also. I have taken the airstones out. Most companies I see just blow air through pvc with big blowers. I use air pumps.

 

i'll come back later(tomorrow maybe) and answer some of these questions. thanks to Teaming with Microbes i can answer them. i'd suggest buying the book

 

i want to do this. how can i ? what is optimum Temp ?

 

Tutorial: Easy Aerated organic teas

http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/387963-first-time-organic-question.html

 

thanks