I have my fisrt batch of tea for season brewing!

[gixxerific]

I couldn't wait, so I'm making some AACT for my tom plant and other house plants. The rest will go into the still frozen compost. I may spray some of my starters as well, heck I might even warm up a cup and drink it myself.

Spring is coming.

FYI my mix was:
4.5 gallons de-chlorinated tap water
2 cups composted manure
2 cups worm castings
2 tbl Kelp extract
2 tbl Blackstrap Molasses

[rainbowgardener]

Congratulations! I'm thinking I will do some compost tea this year, but I'm not starting until I can do it OUTSIDE!

Are you working on growing yourself more, gixx? Personally, I'm always working on trying to shrink myself a bit!

I'm thinking about what garden5 called (in the ACT thread) direct extraction tea. Sounds like it fits my lazy gardener/ Keep it Simple style real well.

[gixxerific]

I made it in my basement it doesn't smell bad, in fact it's got a good smell to it. Well in a gardeners mind it has a good smell to it, like earth kinda.

In reality aerated tea isn't that hard. It only takes a $10 - $15 dollars worth of stuff to get it going. And you don't really have to stir it much, the bubble so that for you. I more or less set it and forget it. Easy cheesy.

[top_dollar_bread]

haha great going gixxer, I can see you got it down
not hard at all and just as long as it gots that good earthy smell your in the good.
I use this every other watering when starting seedlings, witch is like every other weed..they don't drink much when ther smaller then the starter cups/containers.
keep up the good work

[GeorgiaGirl]

Wahoo, sounds great! I was just thinking today I want to brew up a batch that is on the acidifying side, to use on the blueberries and azaleas I've been planting. Most of what I've read so far though says that AACT won't change the pH of your soil that much... I need to wade through the monster AACT thread here and see if you all have talked about that!

[gixxerific]

I'm gonna step out on a limb here and say that tea can't be made acidic or the other way around. Maybe if you made a slurry of acidic plants that might work, not sure on this one though.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yeah messing with ph in tea isn't a great idea; somebody gets hurt. Acidic mix will stunt bacterial side, which thumps the protozoa, who are who we are really after for nitrogen cycling...

Balanced is always where nature wants to go...

Sounds good so far Gixx, keep the air on it, and try to use it in 36 hours; degradation from that point on, especially fungal side, which can spike ammonia which feeds bacteria, who use up all the oxygen, so only anaerobes are alive and then...

No More Good Smells (still suitable for the compost heap though...)

HG

[GeorgiaGirl]

Hm, good to know... I had read somewhere that compost tea becomes more alkaline the longer it's brewed so I was thinking of doing a shorter brewing time... but maybe that's a bad idea.

Happy brewing, gixx!!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yes, the alkalininty increases with the bacterial population (the easiest biology to grow). Bacterial side loves alkaline; acid loves fungi. And conversely in both cases.

Again, if that bacterial population gets too large (a time related issue, as well as foods, predators, etc.) it crashes tea. So not hanging on to it is crucial to good maintenance of product.

So it's a bell curve, with optimal tea somewhere between 24 and 36 hours. I'd err towards early...

HG

[gixxerific]

I'm sticking with 24 (or so) for now that's what Teeming..... say's, so...........................

[The Helpful Gardener]

Wise...

HG