No EWC for tea, what to use instead?

[lc00p4]

Holla! i just purchased some canadian gold organic soil and need to make a tea for flowering. earthworm castings are hard to come by this time of year where i'm from and i need something that has the same NPK value as the EWC does or another equivalent.

my tea will consist of:
* liquid karma
* thrivealive organic
* neptune's seaweed & fish emulsion
* molasses
* dry budswell

another quick question i thought i'd ask. can i add fox farm big bloom to the tea too or should i feed with that separately?

thanks everybody!

 

[seebobski]

how about compost? any of it in your area? go light if high in N!

 

[jaykush]

no compost around?

 

[seebobski]

how funny jaykush !

 

[quadracer]

EWC provides microlife to the soil or tea moreso than NPK. If EWC aren't readily available, then you can use compost or even soil to boost micro-activity. Use the other ingredients for food and NPK.

 

[pineappaloupe]

it depends on where you live (i dont care to know) but in many places you can walk around and find EWC ont he ground. when i was a guerilla grower I would simply rake up some leaves and find a 1" thick layer of pellet castings.

any dark soil in nature should work to inoculate a compost tea as well. get creative. even if you have to order castings on the internet, the extra cost is well worth it for teas. commercial composting has become very popular in many places, look int he phonebook or google local.

if i didnt have worm castings i would be really bummed on organics and probably just go hydro.

 

[BurnOne]

Try composted cow manure 0.5-0.5-0.5 or mushroom compost.
Burn1

 

[lc00p4]

thanks guys! yeah, my area is a frozen tundra right now. very cold temps off of lake superior... i was planning on using mychorrizae fungi from plant success to mix in with the soil.

how much of the compost would you use for the tea? tbsp? etc.

 

[swampdank]

i used a handful. u know. i dont do much measuring. thats what i love about organics.(among other things). just toss a handful of compost in there. i couldnt find ewc when i was making teas either. but that handful of mushroom compost did make my tea good and foamy.

 

[lc00p4]

if i got a bubbler for my tea, should i put the compost in a nylon and soak for 24 hours?

 

[jaykush]

you dont have to but if you want its ok. less work in the end but not as much compost contacts water directly for maximum extraction.

 

[Guest]

look at your local dump and look for the black soil and move it around you will se worms fill you a bag of that and use it in a tea.wher i live ther is dumps wher you drive up to and toss in your junk look around it and you will find worms .we use to go diging for fishing worms at the dump and wher the soil was dark we moved the leaf around and you could grab hand full of worms .now i have my own earth worm farm so no need to do that.you could make your own worm farm.all you need is a plastic tub and buy your worms online.then feed them left over scraps newspaper ect...

 

[JackOneill]

I just aerate a mixture of LK, PBP grow or bloom, and grandmas molasses and I get a nice foamy tea without any ewc added. I have ewc mixed into my soil directly so I see no need to add anymore to my tea.

 

[CT Guy]

Be careful where you get your compost or soil from, because you could be getting pathogens too. Places like the dump may have been exposed to things like e. coli or salmonella. You don't want to be spraying that on your plants. Try to find a couple of sources of good compost, as this will increase your biological diversity.

I would defininitely aerate the tea to keep it aerobic. Try about 1.5 to 2 c. of compost in a 5 gallon bucket.

When making the tea, many times less is more when it comes to adding nutrients to the brew. You're better off adding it after the brewing cycle, right before application if you're unsure. I'd probably just put in a couple of teaspoons of molasses and maybe a T. of the seaweed at the start and the other ingredients I'd mix in right before application.

 

[Guest]

i was saying it not that much money to have fresh earthworm castings.you can get like a kit to start a earth worm farm and you will have some of the best additives for free.just feed left over scraps ,news paper, fruit ,veg.in the spring or when local gardens are puting out i give my worms fresh strawberrys,tomato,coffee grownds,and i leave the bin out in the winter and thay still live all i do is grab a hand full of castings and add them to my bat guono tea and the plants love them.

 

[Suby]

DW those are some beauty nugs, you should post those id the sticky by emmy in this forum.

Casting are soooooooo important, I can't always get it locally but I always save a bag for teas and if I see a sale I go nuts, I like it at 10% or my soil mix.

S

 

[CT Guy]

Dan,

Looks pretty good, I agree that homemade is the best for the quantities you need in tea.

We found a huge difference in quality when we compared local commercial vermicomposting companies. You'll get variances based on the types of materials they're feeding the worms. One place had a vermicompost that was way more active and even had good fungal hyphae (which is not typical of vermicompost it tends to be bacterial).

 

[JollyGreen]

Hey Koopa, this is the place where I got mines online. 5 pound bag

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/worm-castings.html

 

[CT Guy]

It's really easy to build your own worm bin (you can find instructions on many sites on the internet) or you can get one that's already made like a can o' worms. I think homemade is better in many instances because you can control your inputs and know exactly what your worms are processing.

Just learned today that it's possible to get humus from worms by having a high concentration of them work through the same organic material for a longer period of time. After a while, it turns into humus (where the organic material is no longer recognizable at a microscopic level). Great stuff for making tea.

You also might consider a couple of sources of compost for your tea. That's going to increase the diversity of your beneficial organisms. It's can't hurt!

 

[CT Guy]

The link to planet natural has an example of a worm bin if you search for it. Those setups are nice because the worms just keep working their way up the bin and you can remove the bottom layers after they've been processed.