Teas...Can Someone Help Me???

[Reign of Terror]

Ok, so after 2 years of learning information in a another week i will finally start my first grow . I have worm castings, kelp meal, and molassess in mind, i want this to as cheap as possible, and no fish or blood mixes involved due to coyotes and stuff. I dont understand this "brewing" process, is this like a composting process? Or are you talking about boiling? I have no clue to be truthful...but im pretty sure theres some other stuff i can add to my mix thats cheap but im a little lost on it. And i need to know how to make a "tea", i was thinking of just throwing the stuff in the soil but, it would be better to make a liquid of some sort that i can also use as a foliar spray.

help please, thx.
Reign

 

[minds_I]

Hello

All you need to make a tea is a bucket of water and castings. Your kelp meal I don't know about using in a tea.

Get yoruself some bat guano (high N and high P) and use those for veg and flower.

I use about 2 tbsn/gallon of water f ewc and same for the guano (3-10-1) with 2 tbsn of molasses in flower.


You can get a cheap air pump and stone from wallyworld and you are all set. Let it bubble 24-48 hours-when it haas head on it (like beer) its good to go.

If you don't have the airpump-its alright just takes longer-shake up the mix a couple of times a day for a few days
minds_I

 

[Reign of Terror]

could you make a potent tea with worm castings and kelp, basically using a lot more castings and kelp and less water? because i was looking at seabird guano but im trying to pull this grow off cheap and the guano is too expensive, and im thinking that the castings and kelp could be just as effective with more of it

 

[muddy waters]

there's been a number of posts on this topic recently. but since there's nothing i really like discussing better than this and i got another 15 minutes before this film downloads... hell...

I have worm castings, kelp meal, and molassess

potent brew is right there. just add water and a powerhead or airpump/airstone combo.

whether you put a good spoon or two of molasses in there to feed the bacteria or not is your call, depends on what you want the tea to do.

but you're complaining about coyotes so i'm assuming you're growing outdoors. if you have coyotes raiding your indoor grow than i can only offer my sincerest condolences. or maybe you're breeding coyotes? in that case i'm interested in some pups, how much for 4?

outdoors you already have the microbial life you're after, if the area is fertile and rich in organic matter. so i think you would mostly be using castings tea to try to knock out powdery mildew, via a spray. in that case, you want a high bacteria low fungi tea, so you put the worm castings and whatever else in the bucket (i do it in a sock), add water and a spoonful or two of molasses, plug in the airpump, and let er go 2 days. (if using a powerhead make sure the venturi valve is hooked up, sucking atmospheric air into the pump's outlet.)

if you're growing indoors, again, sorry about those coyotes, what a bitch, what can you do right? but if that's the case, maybe you're wanting to innoculate your roots area with mycorrhizal fungi and protozoa and bacteria, so you would repeat the above process, just without the molasses, which serves as carbohydrate food for the bacteria, allowing them to overpopulate the solution, out-competing fungi for the oxygen and carbon and producing that characteristic froth. without the molasses the tea will bubble a little less and it's common to get some yeast which give it a slightly alcoholic smell. now take this brew leave it in a place where the coyotes can get it. they'll get wasted have the worst fuckin hangovers. no, use this one as a soil drench, you only need to do it once if you keep your media from getting bone dry and have a lot of organic matter plus good aeration there to begin with. and thus you will have brought all the good microfauna from out in the forests into your sterilized media-filled containers. (this assumes those worm castings you're gonna use to brew the tea weren't nuked by the way. get yourself some real (alive) compost to do it withif that's the case.)

but in addition to the microorganisms there's also the soluble nutrient content of the tea, the NPKMgFCa etc but this aspect is available without the "brewing" (which is really just bubbling--to get oxygen in there to ensure the process stays completely aerobic). whatever's water soluble in the castings will come right out once you dunk them in water. so this can be a way of leaching them for nutes and applying it to your grow as a basic fertilizer, what's known in the biz as fertigation. the only downside to this oh so basic process is that i've run out of explanation without coming up with another coyote joke.

other than that search around for a list of good shit to add: comfrey, alfalfa, yarrow, your own urine diluted 10:1 in water, ashes, epson salts...

 

[Reign of Terror]

lol youre a funny guy, no i dont breed coyotes but theyre around here somewhat and yes it is outdoors. also my soil is the sandy type, i havent dug deep but from my examinations is a very sandys type of soil, my land is plotted near a swap so maybe the soil around there will be more clayish/black/muddy...most of the soil round here is sandy though.

and now that you mention it what are the nutrients of urine, and i can get some volcanic ash...but if i smash it to a powerder itll be silty and i would only be able to use that as feed for the soil and not as a foliar spray right?

you are very helpful, keep it comin

 

[zamalito]

On top of the castings molasses and kelp I strongly recommend getting a top quality compost a good quality brewers yeast and some innoculant earth nectar/ earth ambrosia for fungi and phc complete for bacteria. Well aged poultry manure(omri certified 4-3-3 cock a doodle doo available at lowes $25 for 25 lbs) or seabird guano is good also I like the pultry manure because of the higher proportion of k Gardensalive.com sells an excellent premixed compost tea ( 3 pouches $12 each pouch makes 5 gallons) it does contain a little fish but doesn't smell like fish. Also has molasses kelp humic acids humic activator american composting council certified compost, castings, brewers yeast and microbial supplement. If you don't want to get that the gardens alive gardeners gold compost. There isn't a better brand of compost available and its only $10 a bag. They make a brewer also but all it is is a 5 gallon carboy aquarium bubbler and air stone. Either way gardens alive is a great company that is very non suspicious since they sell lawn products and.

 

[bostrom155]

Sorry to jump in, but Muddy that is great info, this begs to ask the question of "when do you use or NOT use mollases?" I've been using it every water/feed, too much?

 

[minds_I]

Hello all,

Good stuff Muddy,

I am not trying to start shit-but fungus can convert the carbo and protiens in the molasses. It is however harder/longer process to do this. Meanwhile the bacteria are partying away and consume the food value fromt eh molasses at a quicker rate and thus just out-multiply the fungus.

You can make the tea and put in some unbleached unprocessed flour or grain instead of molasses and the fungus will explode. But there is not much fungus in ewc.

If you really wish to bring in the fungus, you must purchase the prducts or you can grow your own buy propagating from a nice clump of grass.

IO read an article were farmers mix some already innocluated soil with fungus free soil and grow small sections of plants. After some time for the fungus to innocluate the new soil-this soil is mixed with ferts and cast onto the fileds and is tilled in.

The downside is the danger on contamination from outside pests.

I myself use Organics Alive ewc/compost which are as the name implies alive with bacteria. I must say I have had the best results in my short 18 month career.

http://www.organicsalive.org/organic_compost_products.html

minds_I

PS. Muddy, what is your pH after bubbling? I have found that my pH drops to 5.5.

 

[zamalito]

Yeah minds i that's how they grow truffles. Since most truffles are ectomycorrhizal fungi they will take either hazel or or oak saplings and cultivate them under larger trees in the trufiere for a few years then transplant them to a location with suitable soil to start a new trufiere. Truffles (sclerotia) are one of the stages of a fungal culture (mycelia sclerotia and fruiting). They are almost like the fungal version of tuber and are a tightly pressed chunk of mycelial cells that store energy and the genetic information until the environment is correct to go into fruiting stage. Many mycorrhizal fungi produce fruit. I really cannot stress enough on top of the ec using a good quality non earth worm compost in your tea. Most earthworm castings lack a high enough lignin content to breed a high fungi content. If you're strapped for cash you can even by mushroom compost at lowes for like $5 for a 40lb bag. When making solid compost simple carbohydrates are used to boost bacterial content and lignin is used to feed fungus. This is why straw compost tea is used on fruit treas to treat infection with pathogenic fungi. The lignin content breeds beneficial fungi which take the niche that could be filled with pathogenic fungi. In the fields that I grow underneath the vegetation the soil is covered with dead straw like grasses. I've always used these dead grasses as mulch. Anyways last year I noticed that the naturally occuring piles of grasses frequently have small random mushrooms growing in them. This year since I've been growing most of my plants in 5 gallon bags I've been taking the bags and covering them in large piles of dried grass to not only conserve moisture camoflage the bags and protect them from the sun but also to surround the root ball with a sort of mushroom bed/ high lignin compost pile. This on top of applying a very high quality compost tea and plant success tabs will hopefully create a huge beneficial fungi content.

 

[muddy waters]

great info zam... i'm going to have to research more about lignins.

minds_i, i haven't done a pH test but i'm gonna start brewing a batch tomorrow to give my girls a final boost midway through flowering and i will test it when i apply two days later.