I finally made alfalfa tea...

[Bud Green]

Well, i've know about it for years but never tried it until this week...By the way,, I'm an outdoor guy...

I made Alfalfa and weed tea..I started out with a 30 gallon barrel and i put 20 gallons of water in it... I put a BUNCH of weeds I pulled, in it.
The next day I bought a plastic wrapped, 45 lb. bale of chopped dehydrated alfalfa at the feed store..I dumped about 4 dry gallons of dry alfalfa in the mix...
The barrel was sitting in the sun and I stirred it for 4 days..
Today I went down to strain out the weeds and alfalfa, to seperate my tea to put in a clean barrel..
Now I knew this stuff was gonna be smelly, but I have a strong stomach and I live in the woods, so smells don't bother me...

Well, I'm gonna tell you, this stuff stinks to high heaven!
Kinda like a cross between 2 tons of fresh horse manure added to 1000 gallons of fresh vomit...It was enough to gag a maggot!..
I got the weeds and alfalfa strained out and filled a 20 gallon plastic barrel that has a plug with clear, puke green liquid... It stinks so bad the flies were swarming.. i carried the organinic mass 100 ft. into the woods to keep the smell down.

Now,, what i want to know is how much should I dilute this stinky liquid before i put it in the garden and carry out to the secret garden? 1 quart to 2 gallons of water? or should I dilute it more than that?

 

[CoastalKind]

That smell is anaerobic bacteria. You didn't mention an air pump and did mentions stirring so I assume you did not in fact have an air pump. Get an air pump to keep your water aerated. I t will still smell fermented but differently and not as offensive. Get a good air pump. They are cheap. Once that water is aerated a different kind of bacteria will grow, aerobic bacteria. It shouldn't smell like stagnant sewage water.

 

[rasputin]

Wow, you ain't messing around, Bud. That is some seriously potent alfalfa tea/extract at about a 5:1 mix. You'll want to get that up to at least 30:1 before applying to your plants, IME.

I brew an alfalfa tea that is 40:1 and it doesn't need any diluting but it's more akin to a tea than what you've done because I keep it aerated and it's never sitting in the sun for 4 days so I'm sure you're working with something considerably more potent. You made something like an FPE, the pellets dissolved completely, yeah?

Just FYI, for an added bonus, add some Epsom salts and fish hydrolysate to your alfalfa tea. A DIY complete fertilizer that will give most bottled products a serious run for their money. Just watch your ratios as both the alfalfa and fish hydrolysate can be very potent. A little really does go a long way.

 

[CoastalKind]

Careful on some of the cheaper fish emulsions though. They add phosphoric acid to them as a "deodorizer" because it kills the bacteria and molds which is what you are trying to cultivate.

 

[rasputin]

Who said anything about fish emulsion? That stuff is junk.

Fish hydrolysate is what you want. Good stuff is fairly common in most parts of the US nowadays. I recommend Organic Gem, fwiw.

Anyways, back to alfalfa.

 

[Bud Green]

Thanks Coastal, I read about that on several of my organic (vegetable) gardening wesites....That the aerating keeps the smell less unpleasant.

I assume BOTH the anaerobic and aerobic bacteria are good for the soil..I'll look into the air pump...

But as far as diluting it... what dilution ratios have you used?

 

[Bud Green]

Rasputin,, yeah man, its some strong juju... So i guess that when I give each of my bushes about 6 gallons of water tomorrow, I would be safe to mix about 1 quart of this tea in with it?

oh, by the way, I used chopped, dehydrated alfalfa for this mix, not pellets or meal...

 

[Granger2]

Would it knock a buzzard off the gut wagon?

 

[rasputin]

Rasputin,, yeah man, its some strong juju... So i guess that when I give each of my bushes about 6 gallons of water tomorrow, I would be safe to mix about 1 quart of this tea in with it?

oh, by the way, I used chopped, dehydrated alfalfa for this mix, not pellets or meal...

Quart might be a little too much for 6 gallons, not really sure though. That's an approx. ratio of 25:1, that could work but I'm not comfortable recommending anything less than 30:1 simply because my experience is limited to extracts ranging from 30:1 to 45:1.

You might want to try 3 cups per 6 gallons and bump up slowly from there.

By the way, are you using the alfalfa for its fertilizer capabilities or for its plant compounds, like triacontanol? That should factor into how you should make the tea going forward, just fyi. Some methods are better for extracting elements, others for compounds. Depends what you're after.

 

[Scrappy4]

Once your tea went anaerobic it became a fermented plant extract. Walla presto! A water ferment can smell like a horse did it, for sure.

For a general easy to use rule make your drench feed the color of drinking tea, darker = stronger.

For my indoor garden I bubble about 1-2 cups of alfalfa meal and 1 tsp molasses for 30-36 hours in 5 gallons of water, then use.

For a foliar feed I soak alfalfa meal in water 24-36 hours strain and spray, just dilute to a weak tea color.

Alfalfa is a very good (and cheap) plant food.

 

[Drek]

Yep. I use both Alfalfa and Kelp meal sparingly as soil amendments and as tea, mostly in foliar.

Plants dig it! (or i should say, the microbes dig it)

 

[BurnOne]

Alfalfa tea can be hot. I burned the shit out of a crop my first time using it. It recovered nicely though. It's probably the best nitrogen source available IMO.
Burn1

 

[Coba]

speaking of burning with alfalfa ... this happened to me when I went a little overboard with the stuff.

 

[Bake_McBride]

speaking of burning with alfalfa ... this happened to me when I went a little overboard with the stuff.

I've never used the tea once I move the plants to the flower room; heard it causes them to continue growing instead of budding. Other than this time when you went overboard, what type of results have you gotten if/when you add alfalfa in flower?

 

[Scrappy4]

Alfalfa is one of the hotter organic fertilizers. But like all organic inputs less is more. And you have to read your plants. If there not ready it can be overwhelming.

On timing it's use, I personally use alfalfa teas and use it a foliar up to early flower. As a spray it can leave spots of dried alfalfa on the leaves and looks like mite spots, just so you know. I stop spraying when buds appear, and about weekly.

Alfalfa in the soil can get heated too. Just be sure it's mixed well and "cooked" for several weeks or better yet a month.

And along with alfalfa meal teas you can sprout alfalfa seeds, then pulverize in a blender and use that in veg or early flower as a drench feed. The growth (and stretch) can be unreal.

 

[Coba]

I've never used the tea once I move the plants to the flower room; heard it causes them to continue growing instead of budding. Other than this time when you went overboard, what type of results have you gotten if/when you add alfalfa in flower?

What up Bake_McBride.

I used it very lightly after that ... in flowering the first two to three weeks of stretch. once maybe twice during that time ... when I felt I needed a boost. these are old pics ... but I used alfalfa tea on this one until I seen her stop growing.

I cut the recipe in like a 1/4 of what I used before ... and I still got some tips burned.
"less is more" with alfalfa tea. way less, way more.

 

[Bud Green]

Well, based on the info gleaned from comments by Rasputin, Scrappy, Coba and others here, I decided to play it safe.
I watered the outdoor bushes yesterday.. They are in 65 gallon holes of my homemade soil mix of dirt, manure, compost and worm castings, along with organic ferts such as cottonseed meal and bonemeal..
I have found that they like 8 gallons of water each, every 3 or 4 days.
Yesterday I mixed a pint of the concentrated alfalfa tea in with each of thems water...I will observe them, and see if there is a noticable difference in their growth.
I am just as interested in the microbial benefits to my soil as I am in the N addition for the girls...

 

[Drek]

Never burnt a plant with alfalfa...but then again I don't dump in a nasty thick drench of it.

I just sprinkle some into the mix and call it a day....maybe do some light foliar feeds. Read some warnings and scary stuff about how it can burn your plants if you don't do this, or if you don't do that, but I haven't had a problem yet.

I think the dangers of alfalfa have been somewhat overblown; maybe frightening people away from using it at all!

 

[CoastalKind]

Well, based on the info gleaned from comments by Rasputin, Scrappy, Coba and others here, I decided to play it safe.
I watered the outdoor bushes yesterday.. They are in 65 gallon holes of my homemade soil mix of dirt, manure, compost and worm castings, along with organic ferts such as cottonseed meal and bonemeal..
I have found that they like 8 gallons of water each, every 3 or 4 days.
Yesterday I mixed a pint of the concentrated alfalfa tea in with each of thems water...I will observe them, and see if there is a noticable difference in their growth.
I am just as interested in the microbial benefits to my soil as I am in the N addition for the girls...

That sounds like an excellent mix and approach to gardening. Are your babies 6 feet tall?