Snowskate's Organic Tea Guide

snowskate328

New Member
Snowskate's Organic Tea Guide

Very first thing I'm going to start with is an amazing video on how to make your own compost tea brewer for under $30. I had nothing to do with making this video just used it to make my own brewer so all the credit should go to the guy in the video!!



Plants generate exudates from their leaves, attracting bacteria and fungi, to the photosphere, the area immediately around leaf surfaces. As in the rhizophere, these microbes compete with pathogens for space and food and in some cases can protect the leaf surfaces from attack”


So what all of that is saying is if you are going to start making your own compost teas you should spend the few bucks for a spray bottle and feed your plants leafs. It will help your plants out a lot. It will make them stronger and can help protect them from bugs attacking your plants. Bugs love weak plants. When I mix my compost tea to spray my plants I do 100 ML of water to 5 ML of compost tea. When spraying the plants you want to make sure you cover 70% of every leaf both sides. It will take the microbes 15-30 min to fully attach themselves to the leaf. If you are using a power sprayer you do not want it got go over 70 lbs of pressure. This can kill microbes.


One of the most important things when brewing is make sure you have lot and lots of air in your tea!! The smaller the bubbles you have the more surface to air ratio and that means you get more air exchange in the water. You do not want your bubbles to be too small though. If you bubbles are under 1 millimeter you are destroying the microbes.

You want to brew your tea for 24-36 hours. Your tea could go anaerobic or bad if you do not have enough air going into it. If it goes anaerobic it will smell very very bad. You want to get rid of this asap. It has lots of bad things growing in it, including e-coli. If it smells bad do not put it on your plants!!.

Cleaning after each brew is very important!! You want to clean everything!! the only thing i dont clean is the "tea bag" i throw it out each time!. You want to clean with hydrogen proxcide and baking soda. You want everything to look brand new every time!! You do not want anything leftover. e-coli is one of the things that can grow if anything is leftover.
Your air stones should be replaced often because it is very had to clean them inside all the little holes. The best thing to do is let them soak in hydrogen peroxide. I use air defusers and they are really easy to clean and can pretty much be reused over and over for ever. I would recommend them over air stones.


If you are going to put your compost into a soc or any type of “tea bag” you want to make sure that the holes are not smaller than 400 microns. If it is smaller the microbes will not make it out of the “tea bag”


Another very important thing to remember is to always make sure the water you use has no chlorine in it. Chlorine will kill microbes and is also really bad for your plants if water with it in your water. You can use RO water or you can use tap water. I use tap water this is not best but its what I have and it works just fine. All I do is let it sit out for 24+ hours with a few air stones in it to let it dechlorineate.


You always want to brew your tea out of direct sunlight. Sunlight will also kill microbes. You also want to water your plants and spray your plants out of direct sunlight if at all possible. For outdoor gardens you want to water early in the morning when the sun is at its weakest point. Cloudy days are the best!!


To help with fungal growth you want to add kelp, humic and fulvic acids, and phosphate rock dust. Phosphate rock dust not only helps feed fungus but gives them a surface to grow on.


Foaming is normal when brewing your tea. It shows that proteins are being released from the compost and that is a very good thing. If you add mycorrhizal fungi but you should do this right at the end of the brew. After you turn the bubbles off. If you put it in before they will just be destroyed.


You can never nutrient burn your plants with compost teas. So there is a lot less to worry about when watering. Dont have to worry about the PPM or anything. They are living organisms so they will constantly release nutrients into your soil. Unlike synthetic nutrients that are only available right after you water. Organic tea also improve your soil!. It keeps organisms alive and that means your soil is also alive. The more you water with organic tea the less you will have to water. Your soil will hold water better and will constantly supply your plants with nutrients.

Watering

When I water I mix 1/7 of a gallon of tea to 6/7 of a gallon of water.
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After I mix them I take everything I had in the "tea bag" and put it right around the base of each plant. Then I water till I start to see water coming out of the bottom of the pot.

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As far as what to make your tea out of... well... that is a topic of lots of debate. This is the soil food web

soil_web.gif





I would try to replicate the soil food web. I would post my recipe but it is always changing... my current one at the time of this post is a few posts above this one but even writing this I have learned more and am planing on adding more to my recipe. The basics ingredients are earthworm castings, bat guano, molasses, kelp, fish emulsions. So please take the information I have given here and do some research on your own I can't say this is all 100% fact because I am always learning if you have any information that can help me improve what I am doing now please please tell me I always love to look up and research new things I find out from people. I can say that so far my plants have loved organic growing. I really hope this helps anyone!!



 
Here are the tea recipes I use... They are in no means the best way. they are simply the best way that works for me.


Mother Recipe
Mix Per Gallon


Jamaican Bat Guano- 4.5 ML
Earth Juice Molasses - 13.5 ML
Earthworm Castings – 135 ML
Humboldt Deuce Deuce- 4.5 ML
General Organics Ancient Forest – 16ML
[h=3]NPK= 9-3-9 Estimated [/h] Vegetative Recipe
Mix Per Gallon
Week 1-- 1X Mix 3-1-1
Week 2-- 2X Mix 6-2-2
And So On And So On


Jamaican Bat Guano – 1.5 ML
Earth Juice Molasses- 4.5 ML
Earthworm Castings- 45ML
General Organics Ancient Forest- 5.1 ML


NPK= 3-1-1 Estimated


Flower Recipe
Mix Per Gallon


Jamaican Bat Guano- 21.6 ML
Earth Juice Molasses- 6 ML
Earth Worm Castings- 34.5 ML
Humboldt Deuce Deuce- 7.5 ML
General Organics Ancient Forest 7 Ml


NPK= 3-15.4-13.5 Estimated
 
Here are the tea recipes I use... They are in no means the best way. they are simply the best way that works for me.



Vegetative Recipe[/SIZE]
Mix Per Gallon
Week 1-- 1X Mix 3-1-1
Week 2-- 2X Mix 6-2-2
And So On And So On
Thanks for the info! Question thou..... i don't understand what the above means? Do i double the veg mix every week? 3-1-1 then 6-2-2 and then 9-3-3 ? I'm so confused lol
 
A bit of advice!

Be careful with such a "tea", and don't worry about the NPK levels.

I've learned that you're not supposed to mix "nutes" together given the unpredictable nature in which they might react with one another!
@brazel, if you want to make a tea, all you need is some compost, vermicompost, mushroom compost or Ancient Forest Humus, and some unSulfured molasses! The tea you make will always only be as good as the compost you use, or your source for microorganisms.
you also need a good supply of oxygen!

You can use other things to feed bacteria or fungi like kelp meal, alfalfa meal, or fish hydrolysate, but you don't NEED these things.
Also, fungi won't grow in teas. You have to add it to the tea at the beginning of the brew.

Here's a good link for you to start at Microbe Organics

:peace:
 
And I'll add once again adding bat guano to any tea is bullshit unless you want to feed the plant in a long term. Phosphorus in bat guano breaks over months, even seasons, the same with calcium and magnesium.
 
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