[compost_tea] Re: Re: non-aerated teas?

From: Kirk Leonard <kirkleon_at_open.org>
Date: Sat, 8 Jan 2005 17:01:38 -0800
Still catching up from a good week's break, seems we might have run past
this thread but I'd like to keep it alive a little longer.  I tried to get
at this some time ago.

Non-aerated teas and good experience with them brought me to aerated teas.
Learned about organic extracts from my great-relations decades ago - they
called it "manure tea," maybe for the shock or humor value.  The manure in
it was specially selected sun-dried cow pies, always with worms under (not
even close to raw manure).  The other ingredients were the other good stuff
we use today - forest duff, wood and green composts (but not thermally
managed).  Dump the mix into a barrel of fresh water, stir it up couple
times and overnight, use it to water the food patch.  Got great FAV's.

Years later, I got that this was basically a nutrient tea with a bunch of
organic matter in.  I got fancy, started using vermicompost, discovered a
difference between good vermi applied directly as a soil amendment and the
same vermi applied as a tea.  Both worked, tea worked better in season.
Sorry I don't have the science on that but maybe someday someone will
explain it to me.

Non-aerated teas work.  Lot of Brinton's stuff and other European research
shows that.  The've worked wonderfully for me for a long time.  SoilSoup's
bioblender makes a good (lazy but quick) stirred nutrient tea, too.

Aerated or non-aerated there's value in compost teas and extracts.  We'll
hopefully figure out which-a-way-for-what down the road. Meantime, being a
USNOP-nut, I think a message here is that the safety of compost teas,
extracts, et al, is not a function of aerobic or anaerobic, rather what kind
of crap you may have in the compost or the water.

Most anaerobes are beneficial, some aerobes are dangerous, and facultative
critters can be a problem are what I've learned here.  Only concentrations
of nasties are a problem, though, not the method used to make the tea, hmm?

Speaking of terminology, I still revile the term "brewed."  Teas are "made,"
maybe "crafted," aerated, stirred, leached, extracted, whatever, but
"brewed" still makes me think of strange, boiled, medieval concoctions.

That's a side comment not expecting any change but I sure would like it if
it could be stricken from our language.  Talk about non-specific.:-)

Kirk





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Received on Sat Jan 08 2005 - 23:53:48 EST

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