Website To Buy Aerated Compost Tea Supplies

[The Helpful Gardener]

I didn't make tea last year and was getting it where I worked before that. I do have a 55 gallon drum that I will be converting to tea brewing this spring...

If I had my way I would simply extract off of compost and then feed extract the night before I was going to use it, and really I am working on a design that will allow for that more than actual "brewing". So in my perfect world, I would extract for about a weeks supply, taking what I needed as I needed, feeding that in a smaller brewer. I think I'd probably just go with molasses and kelp for average garden use, but doing it this way I can use my extract to provide a number of different "teas" on a job by job basis, and could craft them for specific plants (Doing the rhodies? Perhaps we add a cocoa powder and/or saponin to increase the fungal side. Doing the strawberries? Perhaps we just use the molasses this time).

As noted at several points I would add fish just before application for just about every crop; it is an excellent food for most biology but volatile in the brewed form. Best to let it do its job in the soil where oxygen is less limited.

But do you need the foods? Not really. The biology is the important part...

HG

[gixxerific]

Thanks HG that sounds good to me. Basically what I have been doing.

Gotta go get all the compost off my truck now it's about 3 yards how big of a brewer would I need for that.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Well I used to brew a thousand gallons at a whack, and that used maybe 8o pounds to do that, so you do the math...

A gazillion gallons (or something like that)...

HG

[JV]

I was wondering if there are any websites with a wide variety of the things needed for compost tea, things like kelp meal, molasses, fish emulsion, etc. I can get things like bone meal and blood meal and mycorrhizal fungi tablets at a local place but can't seem to find those other 3. I'm sure there are a number of other great things that you can make compost tea with which is why I'm looking for a site with a wide variety.

Try Amazon.

[applestar]

Amazon is convenient, but you do often pay for that convenience. Same product listed on Amazon by the vendor are sometimes available for a better price at the vendor's own website and/or other sources. As with anything else, a little extra effort to shop for prices and shipping rates makes a difference. Then again, "time is money" so do what works for you.

[garden5]

HG, what is this "extract" you are talking about. Perhaps it's obvious, but at least not to me.

Are you talking about like concentrated, liquid compost ?

[The Helpful Gardener]

Extract is unbrewed, unfed tea. Simply humus and biology rinsed from the soil... there are high tech machines to do it, but I think if you figure out how to recirculate the extract over a bed of your compost, you will eventually get all the goodies.

HG

[Decado]

I was wondering if there are any websites with a wide variety of the things needed for compost tea, things like kelp meal, molasses, fish emulsion, etc. I can get things like bone meal and blood meal and mycorrhizal fungi tablets at a local place but can't seem to find those other 3. I'm sure there are a number of other great things that you can make compost tea with which is why I'm looking for a site with a wide variety.

Try Amazon.

The problem with amazon is that you're buying from vendors that aren't amazon and end up paying steep shipping prices for each separate thing you buy, if I got it from another website (all from the same place) it would be one smaller shipping fee.

[applestar]

I agree about pitfalls of Amazon if you don't shop carefully.

If you have a local Asian market, you could get dried kelp. Get the inexpensive ones packaged for making broth rather than the pretty ones for serving. I've also tried agar-agar -- powdered or flaked. Really inexpensive at Indian markets. Oh, and well-rinsed seaweed DD collected on the beach during summer.

I imagine any grocery store (or feed store) will have molasses. If not, you could see if a bakery would let you have a small container full.

Remember, you don't need a whole lot when making AACT.

[JV]

Sorry I didn't know Amazon was a sensitive issue. Next time I'll think twice before giving any input.

[Decado]

Sorry I didn't know Amazon was a sensitive issue. Next time I'll think twice before giving any input.

Lol we're not being hostile or anything, just putting in our 2 cents about amazon. I use it quite a bit but mostly just for things that are amazon prime so I can get the free 2 day shipping.

Anyways I forgot to mention that I found the supplies I need. I found a organic and hydroponic gardening supply store nearby. I was able to get kelp meal, molasses, worm castings, and a endo/ecto mycorrhizae mixture there, great store.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Seek and ye shall find...

HG

[Decado]

The funny thing is the way I found it. I was looking through the back of "Teaming With Microbes" and looked at one of the mycorrhizae websites listed, I then clicked through the site to the distributors and clicked one of those and on that site could put in my zipcode and that's when it gave me the store. I probably never would have found this place if not for that book.

[The Helpful Gardener]

And how would you have found the book?



HG

[Decado]

These forums of course.

[The Helpful Gardener]

HG

[gixxerific]

Nice

[garden5]

HG, you are basically saying that extract is water that rinsed the compost, was captured, and then rinsed it a few more times? I thing that's what you meant.

You can store that water without it going anaerobic?

Thanks for teaching me yet another new concept.

[The Helpful Gardener]

It will store for a while, depending. Keep it stirred once a day, and smell for the nasties before using, but it should keep a week or so...

Remember you are feeding whoever lives in there when you start, so keep it clean, keep it stirred, and if in doubt, dump it out (on the compost of course...)

HG

[garden5]

When you brew with the extract, do you dilute a portion of the extract in water, or do you use just straight extract?

If it is diluted, what is the ratio?

[The Helpful Gardener]

If you are brewing up you can dilute and brew, or brew and dilute, or just brew. I'd dilute and brew as it increases the carrying capacity for oxygen...

Your call on dilution, but equal parts would be good...

HG