Compost Tea Ingredients

[stella1751]

Guys, it's time to vary my compost tea ingredients. I struggled yesterday to make a batch that didn't mirror my last four batches, and I really want to try something that may satisfy a different, unperceived need.

I could read the monstrous aerated compost tea thread, ferreting out all ingredients people have used in the past, but that would be a big project. Can we start a thread here, listing ingredients we have used in the past? Then I can make myself a list of different ingredients, something I can reference the next time I make a tea.

Here's what I have been using in different teas and in different combinations:

• Gypsum
  Kelp Meal
  Fish Emulsion
  Humax
  Seaweed Extract
  Alfalfa Pellets
  Guano
  Molasses
  Honey
  Cornmeal flour
  Compost
  Composted manure
  Leaf mold

I looked up nettles online yesterday. I just don't think they grow up here. Based upon what I read, that appears to be a plant you know you've got if it grows in your area.

[Dixana]

I never had stinging nettle....under my FIL dug me out some garlic chives to add to my herb pot. They're rotten horrid little plants!!! They're almost pretty to an unsuspecting person, until you touch them. They burn like @$%&!!!!! TWICE now I've had wicked burning welts on my arm from not paying attention when I walked by that pot.
I hate them. I need to get em outta there before they go to seed!! I don't care how great they are compost tea or anything else, I'd rather not have them anywhere near me

[Dixana]

In my huff about nettle I forgot what I was going to tell you about tea
A pound of worm castings in a nylong stocking with no other additives makes killer tea. The sludge from the stocking then makes very good top dress fertilizer
Until I joined this site that was the only tea I used and I had tomatoes last year when no one else did. Try worm tea every so often if you can get your hands on castings. The stuff really IS black gold.

[soil]

I never had stinging nettle....under my FIL dug me out some garlic chives to add to my herb pot. Evil or Very Mad They're rotten horrid little plants!!! They're almost pretty to an unsuspecting person, until you touch them. They burn like @$%&!!!!! TWICE now I've had wicked burning welts on my arm from not paying attention when I walked by that pot.
I hate them. I need to get em outta there before they go to seed!! I don't care how great they are compost tea or anything else, I'd rather not have them anywhere near me

then you probably don't want to know they are eatable and VERY nutritious. best greens of spring imo.

[planter]

I have stumbled through a nettle patch on a hot sweltering summer day Dixana and I can see how you strayed from the topic at hand. Poison Ivy I still pull by hand but nettles..ARG!!

When it comes to tea and specific ingredients I just use what is available. I AM sure that by being more selective I could produce a better product and probable note the results but so much on your list cost real money BUT most of them can/could be substitued.
Compost and composted manure I have and as far as seaweed I can have as much as the Ocean provides and that IS alot.. Yuh just have to be willing to carry it.

Good luck on you brew Stella and keep us informed of what you choose to cook it up with.

I have heard that a good quality tea has a "pleasant" odor and I KNOW the moldering barrel in my back yard 1/3 filled with Turkey doo, seaweed, compost, leaf duff, and even a big ole fish head smells anything but sweet. . Watered down from BLACK to a mellow brown color I like it anyway. Don't get it on your skin in an undiluted form.

I will say Stella that I have some Gypsum too add now. I have the gypsum and my soil can be tight so thanks. Never thought of using it in a tea and usually just put pelletised in the bottom of the hole. Guess I will dump some powder in the tea tommorow. heck, who knows. (Well someone does)..

[stella1751]

Planter, I read that watermelons love gypsum, so I've been putting that in every batch.

What is leaf duff?

[planter]

Duff is just that stuff that builds up on the forest floor over the years. I guess I'm not really sure but I think of it as the leaves and debris before they become soil but after they have an appearance of having been leaves. It's like natural cold composting that requires NO attention and it s rich and like a sponge..

I guess I better Wiki that.

[jakrustle]

These are some of the things I have put into a couple of my teas:

BioAg: TM 7 ( Humic Acid)
Neptunes Harvest Fish Hydrosylate
Compost
Worm Castings
Kelp Meal (Keep it Simple -KIS)
Seaweed Extract (Growmore)
Alfalfa Meal
Unsulphured Molasses

JaK

[rainbowgardener]

I have heard that a good quality tea has a "pleasant" odor and I KNOW the moldering barrel in my back yard 1/3 filled with Turkey doo, seaweed, compost, leaf duff, and even a big ole fish head smells anything but sweet. . Watered down from BLACK to a mellow brown color I like it anyway. Don't get it on your skin in an undiluted form.

.

The compost tea we are talking about is AACT AERATED activated compost tea. The stuff in your barrel is undergoing ANAEROBIC, unoxygenated decomposition. Anaerobic decomposition is very stinky process and can be conducive to bacteria we don't want.

Aerated compost tea does indeed have a very pleasant smell. I made a compost extract by putting a shovel full of finished compost in a bucket full of warm water with a couple tablespoons of molasses and stirring vigorously every few minutes for half an hour. I was amazed, that stuff smelled so good it made me want to drink it! The compost I started with had no particular smell, just mildly earthy.