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A Basic Compost Tea Guide

Dignan

The Soapmaker!
Veteran
Question for all you tea fanatics. I have been making tea as you would expect, BUT...........I have a larger garden and don't have a more than a few 5 gallon buckets to make my tea in. What I have been doing is making a strong tea and then diluting it with rain water....is this good or bad to dilute it this way? I know ultimately I need a larger brewer,but until then????

Capt.,

I'll be forced to do this over the veggie growing season, too. Mind sharing the recipe for what you consider to be a strong CT? Have you settled on a recipe/ratios that you feel are really rockin' for you?

Peace-

Dig
 

JuneBugJoe

Member
Well i would say a lot of information in this thread is probably in teaming with microbes, but i dont know because i have not got the book yet... Still looking for somewhere that has the new edition...

I just got the Compost Tea Brewing Manuel from earthfort... Seemed to be the cheapest place that had it...
 

guest2012y

Living with the soil
Veteran
Capt.,

I'll be forced to do this over the veggie growing season, too. Mind sharing the recipe for what you consider to be a strong CT? Have you settled on a recipe/ratios that you feel are really rockin' for you?

Peace-

Dig
I have just been doubling or tripling up everything. Something like this for a 5 gallon bucket which I will then split 3 ways to make 15 gallons of what I feel is a mild tea once diluted:
1cup EWC
1cup kelp meal
1/2 cup molasses
2 cups fish hydrolysate OR 1cup each of N. bat guano and P. bat guano.

I aerate it for 24 hours then dilute it with aerated rain water before feeding.
Keep in mind this is just for amending when I feel the food is becoming exhausted. Usually in mid to late flowering. Have had no problems,they dig it.
 

bluntt

Member
Bump! Took a while for me to find this.alot of great info thanks V-man and all, this is what I've been looking for.V-man can I use soluble sea weed extract for kelp to add to my tea mix.
 

fadahigh

Member
Ash and Dust

Ash and Dust

Has anyone substituted high phosphorus bat guano with cucumber peel ash(0-11.28-27.20) or grapefruit ash .
 

dj3hut1

Active member
Couple of questions. Is it necessary for me to dilute my tea? Since im growing in coco, would i have to check the ph?
 

jaykush

dirty black hands
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Is it necessary for me to dilute my tea?

only if you dont have a brewer that cant handle large amounts, for example. say you need 5 gallons, but only have a 1 gallon brewer with air pump. you can dilute that to 5 gallons no problem. it would be better than trying to brew 5 with a 1 gallon pump.

edit: and if you have a nutrient tea not compost tea, you may need to dilute.

Since im growing in coco, would i have to check the ph?

no
 
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dj3hut1

Active member
thanks, jkush. exactly what i needed to hear.

here's what im using:

1/3 cup EWC
1/3 cup PSG
2/3 cup IBG
1tsp unsulphered molasses
2tsp diamond nectar
to
3 gallons of water

i diluted the tea the first use 1:1, not the second.
wonder what will happen.
 

jaykush

dirty black hands
ICMag Donor
Veteran
oh wait, you are going to need to dilute that. i thought you were brewing compost tea. meaning compost.

i dont know what IBG is but the peruvian seabird guano can F your plants up if you add too much.

i hope you didnt add that tea yet.
 

dj3hut1

Active member
lol. now, you know i did. no worries, coco's easy to flush. i'll flush this morning. IBG is indonesian bat guano. appreciate you coming back to say that. good-lookin out. peace
 
V

vonforne

thanks, jkush. exactly what i needed to hear.

here's what im using:

1/3 cup EWC
1/3 cup PSG
2/3 cup IBG
1tsp unsulphered molasses
2tsp diamond nectar
to
3 gallons of water

i diluted the tea the first use 1:1, not the second.
wonder what will happen.

I always dilute to 1\4 strength to start out with. The IBG is not as bad as the PSG.

but that is a heavy dose of P for 3 gallons of water. 1 cup = 16 Tablespoons. So, at 2\3´s you have about 11 TBS. With 3 gallons of water that is 3.3 TBS or so per gallon of water.

I would dilute that mix about 5 to 1 to start.

What strain are you growing?

V
 

dj3hut1

Active member
thanks for the ratios. trying to find a mom or three. i currently have NepJam and some White Russian.
 

simonh

Member
Hi everyone

I'm doing an indoor grow in uruguay of Blue Himalayan Diesel (autoflower dwarf strain)

I have 5-6 seedlings on the go and they are 10 days old and doing well with the following mix:

Peat Moss 40% / Coco 20% / 20% Worm Castings / 20% perlite

Also in there is some Dolomite Lime and Sea Bird Guano

As they are autoflowers, in around 10-14 days I will transplant them from one litre pots to 6.5 litre pots and keep the same soil mixture to hopefully minimise transplant shock. Although I will add Bone meal to the flowering mix.

As I'm in Uruguay I have very limited resources in terms of Fert's and Nute's, I need advice on what I can do to prepare the teas before they go into flowering at the end of next week

Do I need to use compost teas and guano teas or just guano teas ??

Just to be clear, this is for flowering only, as I dont think they need anything else other than water for the first three weeks as everything is going ok so far:

What I have / Can Get:

A Kitchen Composter that I am putting used Banana skins in, so i can make banana tea (I was told this is good to do but have no idea what to do when its ready - ie how much to use and how frequnently)

Chicken Guano (powderded) 2-6-3
Sea Bird Guano dont know NPK
Black Strap Mollasses (Rayners Essentials - crude black strap - not sure if unsulfered)
Worm Castings

NOTHING ELSE I'm afraid !

So......can I make a tea with these ingredients - how exactly do I make it (no air stone here or similar), how often to use it etc etc etc

I should have 6 plants on the go once they flower so as a very rough guess I'm thinking around 2.5L of water per day for all the plants - bearing this in mind what quantity of tea per 2.5L

Looking at the Soma book on organics and adapting his Guano Tea formula, I was thinking of taking 20ml of hot water and into that mixing 1.5g of the chicken guano until dissolved and then adding that to 2.5L of water (PH 6.0) and feeding with that twice a week throughout the flowering, then flushing - How does this sound and do I need to also add a compost tea (seperately) into the mix and what about the banana tea idea !

BTW if you're interested, grow journal is here:

http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=167361

and thanks for reading
 

jcj77d

Member
one of my "meal" mixes has yeast in it, its ocean meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, & Thorvin Kelp meal along w/ yeast,,, so is the yeast ok to be used in my ACT, or is yeast bad?
 
C

CT Guy

one of my "meal" mixes has yeast in it, its ocean meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, & Thorvin Kelp meal along w/ yeast,,, so is the yeast ok to be used in my ACT, or is yeast bad?

Yeast should be fine...
 
C

CT Guy

jcj77d,

Longer answer would be that it may not be terribly beneficial to grow out the fungi, but it's not going to hurt anything. I see yeast cells in my compost tea all the time. Would I intentionally add baker's yeast to my recipe? Probably not...
 
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