|
Compost & Casting Tea: A lot of people ask what is it? Once we start explaining a lot reply with something like "Oh, you mean like manure tea". Yes, that's basically a similar concept. Similar products have been used for ages but some modern day science has made it even better! Made from compost & or worm castings & fed some additional additives to feed & increase the population of the "micro-herd" which infuses soil with micronutrients & micro organisms your plants & soil needs. Helps with disease & pest control. Can be used as a soil drench, a foliar spray or both. This of course is not a cure all for everything but I'll sure 'hit' a plant with some Tea at ANY sign of trouble along with an almost religous regular routine of using tea here. We've seen burnt up & neglected plants (Angel Trumpets, Pepper & some misc. plants) that went through a pretty warm summer plus THE wettest summer here in Florida (actually about a month of pretty much constant rain) that have come back to becoming NICE plants with just a couple applications of our tea. They had leaves which were totally yellow from the over watering, had all but stopped flowering & the new growth that 'spurted' after a couple weeks of some Tea even looks healthier than the original set. Helped spark them back to life. We've also seen some Basil plants with some sort of Black Fungi which was chased off shortly after a couple applications of worm tea & we believe the Tea had a LOT to do with that as well. We've also started to notice some pest prevention! We could go on & on but let's just say we use it here regularly & firmly believe in it's benefits!! We make an aerated tea here which is short lived once it's removed from the aeration system & needs to be used within 12 - 15 hours. The countless micro organisms will start to decline if left unaerated How often you apply tea depends on many factors. Some can get away with only one or two applications per year where others may need it weekly, maybe bi-weekly or monthly etc. Factors which can affect the application frequency:
Cut (dilute it) the tea 3-5 times with plain de-chlorinated water. For instance if you have 1 Gal. of casting tea & cut it 3 times you would add 3 Gal. water making for a total of 4 Gal. of one healthy 'drink' for your plants AND soil!!
|
|||
| Ok, so how do you make your own tea? Well since most tea recipes call for making it in 5 gal. buckets & you need to fill it about 1/2 way with your compost or castings that's 2 - 2 1/2 gallons of castings. sometimes a bit much for the smaller gardener. We brew batches here staggering the time so as to have it 'ready' at different times as the photo to the right shows. These have large bubbler blocks attached in place in the bottom hooked up to some larger pumps. If you are interested in making batches this large there's a nice article at: http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/pages/g00030.asp |
) Click for larger version |
||
) Click for larger version |
Since a lot of our clients don't have access to that
much to make a batch I've worked out a system where with some items
in some households or for about $10.00 in parts you can make smaller
batches with a Quart of castings & a gallon milk jug! Will give
you up to 1 1/2 gallons of tea!! PerpperMike's
Gallon Jug Tea System |
||
