Compost Tea

DevinGoulding 2/5/2012, 4:52 pm

Wondering if anyone out there has ever used compost tea with their SFGs. Any experience? I'm planning on brewing my own and spreading it out every two-three weeks to help keep nutrients in the soil high since I plan on being aggressive in my interplanting/succession planting this year.

Thoughts?

**camprn** 2/5/2012, 5:06 pm

I love it. I use it every few weeks during the growing season. I don't do all the high falutin' aerating and stuff, I just put a shovelful of compost in a 5 gallon bucket, stir it with a stick and let it sit for a day or two. Then use the watering can and pour it right over the tops of the plants, so the roots and the foliage get nutrients. This is the only time I water from above. There are several previous threads that touch on this and you may find them useful. What a Face

plantoid 2/5/2012, 6:10 pm

For uncooked stuff ie salad crops i'd suggest you only water the ground as quite likely that a lot of thes compost teas still carry harmful bacteria .

Putting such tea on strawberry fruits is definitely a NO NO for your likely to get a bad dose of ecoli.

DevinGoulding 2/5/2012, 10:31 pm

A couple of clarifying questions to you both. First, when you say water from above, camprn, do you mean water the leaves/veggies and not just the soil at the base of the stem?

Second, plantoid, are you recommending making sure to only water the soil of plants such as lettuce and strawberries, or recommending not using compost tea on anything that will be consumed raw?

I'm definitely planning on aerating, since getting some unsoldered molasses, a gang valve, some aquarium tubing, and a pump are not expensive and will add to the quality of the tea.

Thanks!

Devin

shannon1 2/6/2012, 4:11 am

I make mine like camprn but cover the bucket. I then leave it brew for a week in a sunny spot stiring once daily. Great stuff. I just water it into the ground, not because of nasty bacteria but here in St.Augustine DM, PM, blights and smuts and a big risk.

quiltbea 2/6/2012, 12:21 pm

I basically do it like camprn but don't water the foliage.

I put a couple of trowels of compost in a kitty litter bucket already filled with water warmed from the sun, stir with a stick, and water with a half-gal size lemonade pitcher that has a strainer in the spout to catch the solids. When my pitcher is empty, I toss the solids back in the bucket. What small solids manage to pass thru while watering I consider a bonus to the surrounding soil. Then I refill the bucket with more water and stir again and leave it to warm in the sunshine for later waterings. I stir the water whenever I happen to pass it. I understand that stirring oxygenates the water so that helpful microbes that are great for the crops, can multiply. They can't do that in stagnant water.

I'm the type to pick and eat while I'm checking my plants so won't put compost tea on my leaves. E coli could easily be passed to us thru compost.

plantoid 2/6/2012, 6:57 pm

Yes Devin , exactly what you say .

Some folks get by the bacterial stuff angle by using baby bottle sterilizing solution at a recommended level to sterilize the crops before eating .. ( still not good for Strawberrries or soft " top fruits " )

We have such bottle sterilizers called " MILTON " it's sodium hypochlorite & there are instructions on the container how to use it .

shannon1 2/7/2012, 3:48 am

Is it not sad that due to "modern" factory farming even our organic gardens can make us ill. Grass pastured cattle due not harbor ecoli only feed lot cattle and even they would shed 90% of e-coli if put in the feild ofr only 2 weeks. Rolling Eyes

LaborDay RN 2/7/2012, 4:36 am

I agree that grass/pasture feed meat is the healthiest for humans as well as for the animals, but being a health care professional, I'd like to add something here. All beef can harbor E. coli. It's a gram negative bacterium found in the lower intestines of warm blooded organism. While grass/pasture fed beef may harbor less, it still needs to be safely handled like any other beef. E coli is nothing to mess with, most especially for the young, elderly or those with weakened immune systems.
Here's an interesting article from Penn State on the subject http://meatblogger.org/2009/12/06/grass-feeding-of-beef-does-not-ensure-beef-safety/

RN taking off her nurse hat salute

shannon1 2/7/2012, 6:54 am

I'm not a nurse but I was a vet tech for 10yrs. I did not say grass fed beef was completely free of e-coli. Here is alittle something from Cornell University I found interesting. http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/sept98/acid.relief.hrs.html

Windsor.Parker 2/7/2012, 11:07 am

DevinGoulding wrote:... to help keep nutrients in the soil high since I plan on being aggressive in my interplanting/succession planting this year...

My plans are similar, and we're in the same area, too!

DevinGoulding 2/7/2012, 10:07 pm

Windsor.Parker - I'm on the West Side of the city near Oak Park. Keep us/me updated on what is working for you so I can steal ideas Very Happy

I'm definitely going to continue to do some reading on the Compost Tea. Reached out to some people that work with the community garden two blocks from my house to see if they want to join in with me or have experience. I'll keep you posted.

-D

fiddleman 2/7/2012, 10:25 pm

I have never needed compost tea in my All New Square Foot Garden. Can't hurt too much I suppose, but a heaping trowelful of compost planted and mixed into the square when you harvest works awfully well... I think it's because the roots will go where they will since the Mel's mix is so friable.

When I row gardened I found compost tea helpful. I would suggest trying out a couple of boxes where you compost tea directly on the roots for some plants, and just water and regular Mel's mix on the others. Likely as not since Mel's mix is already chocked full of nutrients, you won't see any real benefit.

It's really easy to believe you still need to do all the things you used to do in traditional row gardening... most of it isn't necessary though. Too much of a good thing is sometimes worse than too little of a good thing. For example, if there is too much nitrogen in the soil, your carrots can have multiple rootlets growing out of them making them look like they have a beard. Vitamin A is a necessary nutrient for us, but too much will turn your skin orange. More isn't always better.

If your plants seem to be weak, not leafing out correctly, or pale green, check for bugs, good soil temp, and well watered mix, if these all check out THEN try the compost tea. If it ain't needed, it ain't needed. If nothing is wrong, then nothing needs to be done to "fix" it.

Mark

shannon1 2/8/2012, 4:25 am

fiddleman wrote:I have never needed compost tea in my All New Square Foot Garden. Can't hurt too much I suppose, but a heaping trowelful of compost planted and mixed into the square when you harvest works awfully well...

If your plants seem to be weak, not leafing out correctly, or pale green, check for bugs, good soil temp, and well watered mix, if these all check out THEN try the compost tea. If it ain't needed, it ain't needed. If nothing is wrong, then nothing needs to be done to "fix" it.

Mark

Good advice, I do use CT but like anything only sparingly. Even Mel says there is no one growing medium that is perfect for every place, but MM is the best over all for most. Down here in the heat of summer plants are under a great deal of stress, even with 2x daly watering I have found compost tea the perfect pick me up, well for the plants, ice tea and shade for me. Smile

In fact I wonder if the frequent watering might not be washing some of the good stuff out of the MM but if I don't do it the plants wilt and die. Many folks just don't garden for the hottest 2 months of the year but I need my garden or I go bat Compost Tea 136416910

crazy.

boffer 2/8/2012, 11:48 am

I'm going to agree with fiddleman on this one. Making compost tea is about extracting bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes from compost. Due to the nature of MM, we already have those things in our growing medium. The amount of nutrients that are extracted are very small. It is recommended that a farmer apply compost tea to his soil at the rate of 20 gallons per acre; there's not many nutrients in that. You can do the research to see if anaerobic or aerobic produced tea is best, and which provides the type of content you wish to apply. You can do harm by killing the good stuff if you don't make your tea properly.

Compost tea is just another tool for the commercial farmer that has been adopted by backyard gardeners with little comparison testing. The backyard row gardener might see some improvement in his topsoil from the use of compost tea because it contains so little organic material to begin with. But, with the large amount of compost already in MM, compost tea will usually provide more benefits for the SFG gardener than the SFG garden.

The good stuff in compost tea like bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes can be measured in a soils lab, but the cost is generally prohibitive for a backyard gardener. Our best test available is to do side-by-side same year comparisons by applying compost tea to half of our plants, and leaving the other half alone as our control. If you're a firm believer in compost tea, how about doing side-by-side tests this year and reporting on the results so we all may learn.

As SFGers, we have a fantastic advantage over row gardeners. For row gardeners, if one gardener shows an improvement by the addition of green sand, for example, it doesn't necessarily help the gardener four counties away who may be gardening in completely different soil. If a SFGer can prove that a new procedure/technique/additive is beneficial, then we all can benefit because we have similar growing mediums ie. MM by the book.

I found this to be a good resource:
http://www.soilfoodweb.com/sfi_approach3.html

**camprn** 2/8/2012, 11:52 am

fiddleman wrote:If your plants seem to be weak, not leafing out correctly, or pale green, check for bugs, good soil temp, and well watered mix, if these all check out THEN try the compost tea. If it ain't needed, it ain't needed. If nothing is wrong, then nothing needs to be done to "fix" it. Mark

+1

januaryX 2/8/2012, 8:25 pm

Given the amount of compost in MM, if I were seeing growth issues in my plants, I would be inclined to give a dose of fish emulsion rather than compost tea.

shannon1 2/9/2012, 1:06 am

boffer wrote: Our best test available is to do side-by-side same year comparisons by applying compost tea to half of our plants, and leaving the other half alone as our control. If you're a firm believer in compost tea, how about doing side-by-side tests this year and reporting on the results so we all may learn.

Boffer I would love to do just such an experiment. I just have one 4x6 TT so no room. I know it helps in my garden. I hope in the not so distant future I will be able to do just such a test. Compost Tea 27650

I learned of compost tea in Mel's org. book of course back then we did not use MM. I was interesting to learn it is use in commercial farming. Perhaps I have too many drainage holes in the bottom of my TT and that's why when I water so much in the summer heat it leaches out the goodies.

fiddleman 2/9/2012, 4:58 pm

shannon1 wrote:Boffer I would love to do just such an experiment. I just have one 4x6 TT so no room. I know it helps in my garden. I hope in the not so distant future I will be able to do just such a test. I learned of compost tea in Mel's org. book of course back then we did not use MM. I was interesting to learn it is use in commercial farming. Perhaps I have too many drainage holes in the bottom of my TT and that's why when I water so much in the summer heat it leaches out the goodies.

I am curious as to what the results to a test like this would be. My climate rarely gets to be a problem with heat, so I don't think about it too much. I usually just mulch out the garden to reduce the water needs for the garden. I have enough shade that I don't worry about heating up the soil too much making the soil evaporate out of the garden too quickly.

I wonder if some shade cloth / mulch would be in your future experiments. I would think in Florida it would be a requirement in the heat. Here in Michigan it (shade cloth and mulch)is only ever needed for things like lettuce and then only for about 2 weeks in the summer usually, the rest of the time we get enough rain/clouds to decrease the watering needs.

Mark

shannon1 2/10/2012, 2:51 am

fiddleman wrote:
shannon1 wrote:Boffer I would love to do just such an experiment. I just have one 4x6 TT so no room. I know it helps in my garden. I hope in the not so distant future I will be able to do just such a test. I learned of compost tea in Mel's org. book of course back then we did not use MM. I was interesting to learn it is use in commercial farming. Perhaps I have too many drainage holes in the bottom of my TT and that's why when I water so much in the summer heat it leaches out the goodies.

I am curious as to what the results to a test like this would be. My climate rarely gets to be a problem with heat, so I don't think about it too much. I usually just mulch out the garden to reduce the water needs for the garden. I have enough shade that I don't worry about heating up the soil too much making the soil evaporate out of the garden too quickly.

I wonder if some shade cloth / mulch would be in your future experiments. I would think in Florida it would be a requirement in the heat. Here in Michigan it (shade cloth and mulch)is only ever needed for things like lettuce and then only for about 2 weeks in the summer usually, the rest of the time we get enough rain/clouds to decrease the watering needs.

Mark

oh yes Fiddleman I do use shade cloth too I shold have said so.

shannon1 2/10/2012, 11:39 pm

I am growing cucumbers in two 16" pots and my plan was to grow sweet success in one and marketmore 76 in the other, 2 plants per. pot with a trelis between them. Now I have decided to grow one of each per. pot next to each other (so they will get the same sun light), measure liquid so each get the same amount but one will only get water and the other will get CT.

Like I've said I the it is the very hot summers that make compost tea a booster here but I'm eager to find out if it realy makes a differance I will keep every one posted on the results. Compost Tea 680166

**camprn** 3/3/2012, 8:43 pm

Here is an interesting read about the debate of e.coli in manure compost tea, anaerobic vs aerobic brewing and probably more than you ever wanted to know. affraid

Here's a good tip: Wash your veggies before you eat them. Wink

http://www.dirtdoctor.com/newforum/root/e-coli-in-manure-compost-tea-t1380.html

**walshevak** 3/3/2012, 9:00 pm

From the above link.

I'm confident that the review will exonerate compost tea, but I think the whole matter illustrates a bias. There doesn't seem to be much hand wringing when, or over the fact that, pesticides or toxics in general are used in manners inconsistent with directions or "guidelines." The USDA and company sure seem to treat similar indiscretions in the organic world harshly by comparison. If Monsanto produced/sold compost tea, I doubt we'd hear a peep about potential pathogens

Had to laugh at this.

shannon1 3/4/2012, 1:20 am

walshevak wrote:From the above link.

I'm confident that the review will exonerate compost tea, but I think the whole matter illustrates a bias. There doesn't seem to be much hand wringing when, or over the fact that, pesticides or toxics in general are used in manners inconsistent with directions or "guidelines." The USDA and company sure seem to treat similar indiscretions in the organic world harshly by comparison. If Monsanto produced/sold compost tea, I doubt we'd hear a peep about potential pathogens

Had to laugh at this.

Still have not planted my cuc exparment yet but I will let you guys know when I do and will be taking pics. I'm just as eager as the rest of you to see if there is indeed any differance.

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