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Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

Looking for a couple compost tea recipes, any growers out there willing to pass along any recipes that they have had success with.

Phil

2/13/2004 8:07:18 AM

Montoursville, PA

Phil.........This, of course, could get as interesting as apple pie fixens but the bottom line is: All aerobic teas that are whipped with ozygen and fed with carbohydrates to the point they form a tan colored froth should be very good teas. The high bacteria count will benefit the plant and the soil as will all the other parts of that tea. Without all the specifics we know so little about anyway you will always be safe with a well fed frothing batch of compost tea.

Should you have a problem with the froth climbing the sides of your container and oozing out of the container you can prevent this by rubbing a thin coat, of vegtable oil, on the upper side walls part of your batch making container.
If you are lazy like me you can us PAM to treat the walls.

There are few instances where the home gardener might be better off to have an anaerobic tea. That would be some fruit trees and most acid loving plants like blue berries and azalias. Getting mixed up most likely would not kill anything but it is always best to give a plant the ballance it would like to have. Most making tea will have excess to use on other things around the property. Most who do this will be reading and understand the basics, at least....or should be!

2/13/2004 9:20:56 AM

Bemidji, MN

I generally take fresh/green horse manure. Soak in 5 gallon pails full of water for 2 days. then strain solids out. Can't use it staright or it'll burn plants, so I use 1 cup to 1 gallon of water. It works for me. Steve

2/13/2004 12:06:29 PM

Omaha, NE (N41-15-42 )

what about purchased earthworm castings at the local garden store? any bacteria in there that would work for making tea?

2/13/2004 1:16:44 PM

Montoursville, PA

Dr. Elaine R. Ingham quotes: "Manure Tea...a water extract of manure: can contain soluble nutirients, tyypically high nitrates, salts, phosphorus and potassiium, contains high numbers of protozoa, extremely low fungal biomass, can contain high numbers of nematodes, ofen contains root-feeding nematodes, and almost always contains human and animal pathogens."

"Compost Extract is produced by purposely running excess water through compost. This water contains soluble nutrients but very few organisms. By cycling this water through the compost a number of times, organixms may be pulled from th ecompost surfaces and reach numbers adequate toprotect leaf and root surfaces."

"in compost tea, manure tea, compost extract and compost leachate, souluble nutrrients, enzymrom the compost can benefit plant growth." "Manure teas can have to high levvels of nitrate, which can "burn" plants."

"Only compost tea contains a complex set of organisms extracted from the compost." These teas may also contain of plant material, molasses or other sugars, proteins, carbohydrates, kelp, rockpowders, rock dust,humic and fulvic acids, sources of N etc. as additoonal food for microbes and nutrients for crops.

Many growers have their secret soup or tea. New recipes are always being tested in many different areas wtiht the goal of achieving better plant production, better soil structure, better nutrient cycling and less disease.

We would all be well advised to follow the finest leaders available. As some would say and I have also said, "it 'aint rocket science" but by damn it is a darn site more involved than tossing a few rocks in a bucket and blowing bubbles. Those who think it that easy are just blowing smoke to sell their untested untried theory and toys...into which they dump untested and unproven additives.

2/13/2004 2:08:50 PM

Montoursville, PA

JMattW..........It has been said that anything the worm passes through its body will be better than the matter he ate.

.........It has been said that every cupic inch of soil be call top soil has be through a worm dozens of times.

There are books and methods for making worm casting teas. It is highly reguarded by many as their favorite tea. It is expensive, far more so than, to create compost tea. This is like having two good things or procedures going the same direction. However ,to learn worm farming, in order to get casts at a reasonable cost is quite a bit more involved than learning, to make good compost.

Worm farming is not difficult. It takes specific design equipment which can be hand crafted. You can read the books and catalogs from which you can design your own. It is utterly amazing what those crtters can and will eat to breed up a box of tens of thousands in a short period of time. If you have never done this I advise that you at least try it. Then of course you would make tea or just add the casts to the patch.

2/13/2004 2:38:36 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I could be wrong, but I think Phil wants to know which ingedients & in what quantities folks use to steep the tea.

I for one would be curious to know what percentages of which ingredients people use. I've heard of the following ingredients but no percentages???????????

Decomposed compost (non herbicide treated of course! LOL)
Earthworm castings
Smaller amounts of animal manures in varying stages of decay
Comfrey tea
And a raft of other "secret ingredients" that make gobs of money for the seller.

But what's in these "secret ingredient" packages? I abhor secrets & strongly advocate truth in labling. Certainly not a strength of the compost tea marketing crowd that's for sure.

2/13/2004 2:58:33 PM

South Western Pa

Any recommendations on worm books?

Mark

2/13/2004 3:41:30 PM

canal winchester ohio

Here is a cool link to make it...it simplifies it for us "challenged" folks....me being one as well
http://www.dep.state.pa.us/dep/deputate/airwaste/wm/recycle/Tea/tea1.htm

2/13/2004 4:56:20 PM

Montoursville, PA

I have just come to the conclusion that the Trogen that fell out of thin air has in fact, in one instance, turned into a worm and may be revealing itself as we speak as a skunk. This is rare on this board but by gollies I believe I see it coming to pass.


Anyone with the knowlege of the person asking the questions to belittle and confuse is a sad representation coming from a leader in his field. The person doing this knows full well that the answers do not exist and are not a part of anyone in the whole organic field....ever. Smoke screens of onreyness are being blown to confuse. To confuse the truth in this manor is relative to mean intentional creation of doubt.

To have an intellegent being on this site continously phrazing questions to belittle and confuse the reader atempting to learn is about as low of human scum that can exist.

To ask tricky questions that are not even a concern of the competition is willfull creation of confusion. Maybe that person has to do that to maintain his superior unquestioned king of hill information supplier that nearly always has a product for sale in the other hand. Often that product does nothing to contribute to the improved biological activity within the soil. Should we ask who is speaking and for what reason one more time?

I know it hurts but we must always ask in what way will any product contribute to the biological life of the patch.That is not embattlement fodder such as the questions being raised on this thread. There are only two considerations. One is that a product helps support life while the other is that the product destroys life.

I find it strange to be shot at in this manor when the answers were on this site for the origial question. A simple referal could have been made. Shoot and to play games seemed more important than helping the person who ask the question.

2/13/2004 8:12:19 PM

Montoursville, PA

I'm still looking for a cut and paste of that Trogen that attacked only one computer. Still offering a cool $100.00 for a copy of that to show the people that fix my computer.

2/13/2004 8:34:06 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Enjoy Dwaine. I thought I was helping Phil. Sorry if you were offended by my desire for a clear & concise answer to his fairly clear question. I will try to refrain from offending an more brewers with requests for accurate information.

By bthe way. Send the $100 to the Boy Scouts of America for me.

____begin clip_____

-----Original Message-----
From: helpdesk [mailto:helpdesk@lesco.com]
Sent: Friday, February 9, 2004 10:32 AM
To: sls247@lesco.com
Subject: Help desk ticket - Request virus detail - Ref: # 144475 #

Hello 247 Steve Jepsen,
This is an automatic notification to inform you that a help desk ticket
has
been logged for you with the following information.

To update this request via email click on 'Reply' and delete the
original
text message to avoid redundancy.

Request ID: 144475
Title: virus detail


=== REQUEST SERVICE George Markusic: 2/9/2004 10:16:36 AM
He called and said that he has a virus ws2.hostidel.trojan. He tried to
delete the file and gets the message c:\windows\system\...svchost. He
was
unable to delete the file as him or as helpdesk. I told him that I
would
serve as remote host to remove.

Regards,
Lesco Help Desk

2/13/2004 10:59:00 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Phil,
Here is a link to a good book by Elaine Ingham that I picked up at a Soil Food Web seminar. You can access the entire thing for free from this link:

http://soils.usda.gov/sqi/soil_quality/soil_biology/soil_biology_primer.html

As usual Ms. Ingham fails to get specific about ingredients of actual teas. But it is a very good read just the same.

2/13/2004 11:16:34 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Here's one that actually has a list of ingredients with quantities. The test subject is a golf course. They used equal parts of:

Wood chips
grass clippings
horse manure
horse bedding

aged 4 months & temps monitored to 135 degrees.

They aerated the brewer water for 1+ hours to gas off the chlorine first.

To the 100 gallon brewer they added a Woods End catalyst made from (sorry no percentages or quantities! LOL) Molasses, Sea Kelp, Cane Sugar, Rock Dust, & Yeast.

Then they tossed in two 5 gallon buckets of the compost.

In the printed report you can see they had better rooting & a reduction in one of the primary turf diseases they encounter. No other benefits were noted in the first year.

This is the kind of report I like to see. But it would be much better if they got more specific with the rates of ingredients & quantities of the "catalyst" that they used.

http://www.presidio.gov/NR/rdonlyres/4E22E42D-F215-4648-80E9-191526FA4323/0/CompostTurfTrial.pdf

2/13/2004 11:57:56 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

http://www.composttea.org/what_is_compost_tea.html

2/14/2004 12:05:27 AM

Deer Park WA

Steve,

If we gave you the exact formula from generations of our families research it would take all the fun out of the effort for you and me.

2/14/2004 12:25:37 AM

Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

Thanks for the replies everyone. I have never used compost tea before but after researching it the last couple days, I find it will be a welcome addition to my garden. I know some people have secret recipes and I appreciate their concerns about protecting them. All I am looking for is the basic ingredients other growers are using and "IF" and only "IF" you are comfortable enough to pass along a basic recipe that would be great. I hope this thread hasn't cause any ill feeling between growers on this site, it certainly wasn't my intention. Just looking to improve my garden soil enough to grow a new PB.

Thanks again
Phil

2/14/2004 8:06:53 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

Geez Dwaine...I like you both but you're gettin' a bit mean spirited there aren't you? No need to slam and degrade someone just because you disagree with 'em on something that, in the long run, doesn't have enough bearing on this hobby to *greatly* affect things to one side or the other.
That was just mean dude, Steve only tries to help people as much as you do.....

2/14/2004 8:12:37 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Gad's,

The fastest way to advance technology (any kind) is to share it. Then others will push the envelope ahead & hopefully share their findings with you. Exclusionary practices don't serve to advance anything. Quite the opposite.

The trouble is that this technology isn't really patantable. So big Corporate money isn't being thrown at universities to test these brews. Therefore there is no peer reviewed scientific data to really digest. It's a shame.

I don't hold this technology in low regard at all. Indeed I do sell & profit from it. So knocking it down doesn't benefit me. But I have a scientific mind that has to know *WHY* something works before I'll place a great deal of stock in it. But just finding proof that compost even *DOES* work is rather frustrating. And no scientist is going to make decisions based on best guess judgements. Truth, quantifiable results, & evidence are all I seek.

Phil, I'm sorry if my involvement here has wrecked your thread. This was not my intention at all.

Steve

2/14/2004 10:21:13 AM

Montoursville, PA

Thank you Stephen....When you telephoned me I informed you that the transmission specifically mine contained an attachment that contained no Trojon, worm or virus. I informed you very clearly that the item I sent to you had been all over the net and was not causing problems elsewhere.

All the URL led you to was a little flash movie and some java script which you were corectly describing to me as exactly what I sent..."No Trojon, worm or virus". The URL continues to circulate all over the world as we speak without causing anyone else any problems. You were aware of this and still chose to post virus alerts that aroused at least one other person un-neccessarily.

This leads to only a few possible conclusions. For the benefit of your character I would say there definately is something wrong that appears to have originated within the confines of your own computer and/or help that you depend upon....namely in house proper identy of whatever it is they are seeing. Would it not appear that said electornic trigger of any alert would more likely be originating within the system rather than from without. How can it possibly explain the fact that this discovery was not knowingly experienced by any other person?


I'll hang on to the hundred bucks for a little. You have not identified my transmission as the root of your problem.
You stated I caused that problem.. Your McAffee or Norton would have caught and held it. Apparently it did not. Of course the reason may be that your claim is totally incorrect relative to my transmission. Now you may go back and overwrite or edit the above transmissions to show my eMail as the source.

2/14/2004 10:40:11 AM

Montoursville, PA

Some have said I have been highly spirited and mean to you. To remove any doubt I was indeed. This will be my last words directed to you. I will continue to ask the ugly questions concerning what is poison and what is not poison additions to the biological living soil. Can Lesco or any other maker of any synthetic chemicals guarentee that their poisons will only kill the targeted bad guys be they bacteria or fungi? Can any maker guarentee that the only life destroyed will be the soil born cause of the aledged illness? These are basic whole world concerns not specific to any one person or maker of those chemicals.

2/14/2004 10:40:27 AM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Ah. Back to the subject at hand. Thanks Dwaine. And I'm sorry if it looked like I was criticizing you. It's the Tea Industry I am critical of.

No. Nothing inteded to kill whether man made or natural is that selective. Yet. In fairness, compost teas gone bad are also known to vector human pathogen (Botulism, E coli., etc) so we must always exhibit care when handling a loaded weapon.

I find it interesting that the Tea people judge LESCO for the chemicals we market (don't produce) & not the Natural Organics we market (also don't produce). Funny. If the two should ever meet on common ground, this technology would advance.

We should continue to strive to establish a "recommened Pumpkin formula" for starting teas off correctly. I know this hasn't been concisively established. But we do need a base formula to start us "Compost Tea Neophytes" off on the right foot. It will do no good to have folks start of unguided, get discouraged, & give up citing compexities that could otherwise be managed reasonably.

Further correspondance re Trojans should be in private. But for the last time. Dwaine's email was NOT INFECTED & I never said it was. It has been determined by trained professionals that the website in question was the pathway. I'm sorry I didn't save every shread of evidence. But who really needs it? It serves no purpose now.

Steve

2/14/2004 11:18:07 AM

Appalachian Mtns.

Good grief....I've learned quite a bit from you Dwaine and taken many of your recommendations, and my soil is better off for it. I've also taken quite a bit of Steve's advice and because of him, I didn't lose 24 plants last year when disease hit me hard.
There's plenty of room in this pumpkin world, and board, for both trains of thought to co-exist. But there's no need, or place, to be hateful or hurtful and especially not to critize someone for who or what they work for, that's being childish. Life is too short and not one train of thought is an absolute.
You both are very intelligent and articulate men who have helped countless others on this site, I know I'm eternally grateful to each of you. But to rant and banter is counter-productive and utterly useless for the those of us who look to you both for advice and guidance on matters pertinent to us all.

2/14/2004 1:59:06 PM

Garden State Pumpkins

Dittos Southern

2/14/2004 6:16:01 PM

South Western Pa

Just for information, below is the script from the website in question. What happens is when you go to the web page initially it plays a simple flash movie, no virus. If you do not have Flash installed it will ask if you want to download and install the Macromedia Flash player, no virus.

Now here’s where the annoying part starts, when you close the web page or press ctrl+alt+delete, it calls a function ( not a virus ), called “procreate” and opens six more small windows playing the same Flash. Every time you try to close a window it makes six more. It’s just an impossible game of stomp the gopher. This is not a virus just annoying java script. Restart your computer and it’s gone.

The virus named above, ws2.hostidel.trojan, is a typo. The closest name of a virus is w32.hostidel.trojan. And it is not transmitted by flash files.

I recommend always scanning your email attachments and never opening one unless you are expecting it and know who it’s from. Also to eliminate annoying pages like this one buy yourself a popup add blocker or even better use a browser other than Explorer. I use Opera 7 and it has built in popup blocking and much more. I’ve also heard Mozilla is good ( and it’s free too ).

The bad guys out there write viruses for the widest audience possible, ie; Microsoft products. This isn’t Microsoft bashing, just the truth.

Anyhow the script is below for your perusing.

Mark

2/15/2004 5:12:39 PM

South Western Pa

<html>
<head>
<title>You are an idiot!</title>
<script language="Javascript" src="../script/you.js"></script>
</head>
<body bgColor=#ffffff onKeyDown="altf4key();ctrlkey();delkey();" onUnLoad="procreate()" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
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<param name=movie value="youare.swf">
<param name=quality value=high>
<embed src="youare.swf" quality=high pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="100%">
</embed>
</object>
</body>
</html>

2/15/2004 5:13:12 PM

South Western Pa

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aWindow = window.open(url,"_blank", 'menubar=no,status=no,toolbar=noresizable=no,width=180,height=175,titlebar=no,alwaysRaised=yes');
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function procreate(){
openWindow('open.html');
openWindow('open.html');
openWindow('open.html');
openWindow('open.html');
openWindow('open.html');
openWindow('open.html');
}

function newXlt(){
xOff = Math.ceil( 0 - 6 * Math.random()) * 5 - 10 ;
window.focus()}

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2/15/2004 5:13:24 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

I just got off the telephone. It has come to my attention that a friend has taken great offense to things I said in this thread. I was not intending to offend anyone. I appologize if my words were taken this way.

Herbicides do get into grass clippings. My herbicide comment came from thoughts occurring from another unrelated thread regarding clopyralid in compost & the extensive reading I do on all things "Green Industry".

My only concern regarding Comppost Teas in general is that many fine growers have achieved high levels of success in the past by varying the compost ingredients to the goal intended. In other words, the fungi vs bacteria ratios can be manipulated by the recipe. And they have managed to do so without buying secret ingredient packages from resellers.

The "concern" part comes not from those who use the products, but rather those who hold the ingredients guarded (Compost Tea Product sellers) so they might take the growers money for things likely found for free in the yard or at least much cheaper at the super market or health food store if they knew what it is to look for.

Yeast is a prime example. Camfrey Tea as another. If we knew the proper ratios, we could prepare the "CT additives" ourselves at much reduced cost.

But the suppliers are holding the ingredients secret to insure repeat of high margin sales.

Hey. That's the American way. But if no patents are held, and none are, then we the growers are free to find our own ingredients to sway a batch to go either fungal or bacterial. I would really like to know which igredients should be added or omitted & in what quantities to acieve a specific end result.

I'm still not sure how my reasoning has been found in mean spirit. But since it has, I sincerely appologize.

Steve Jepsen

2/19/2004 5:40:11 PM

Appalachian Mtns.

That's a sign of integrity if I ever saw one...

2/19/2004 6:12:59 PM

Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

Steve, check out the recipes on the second page of this site. See what you think.

http://www.norganics.com/BrwrManBitti.pdf

Phil

2/19/2004 8:34:02 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Thanks Phil I've seen this one it it appears to be the most thorough so far.

Steve

2/20/2004 7:57:07 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Phil, Check out this website. It behaves like a Power Point program. Quite a few slides.

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/compostteashow/compost-tea-slides/sld001.htm

Slide 19 (of 48) is a recipe.

Steve

2/20/2004 8:03:18 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Read this when you have time to do it justice. Then sleep on it. Then read it again.

2/20/2004 8:31:21 PM

Ctpumpkin@optonline.net

Read this when you have time to do it justice. Then sleep on it. Then read it again.

http://www.agriton.nl/apnanman.html

Steve

2/20/2004 8:31:42 PM

i know this had got lots of replies already, but i got a new book today, and it's got a recipe for compost tea....

fill 5-15 gallon bucket half full of compost, then fill with water

let sit 10-14 days

strain out solids with pantyhose, cheesecloth, or something similar

dilute, one part tea to 4-10 parts water, should look like iced tea

spray on

2/21/2004 3:01:39 PM

Nj

No air pump?

2/21/2004 3:47:58 PM

Deer Park WA

Brig, That is a horrible anerobic recipe, great for apples and berries. Try a 5 gallon bucket of water with manure, compost or the best worm castings in a leg of panty hose tied off; with an air pump agitating the brew for three days. Aerobic is the key, add sweetners for the bacterial buddies!

2/21/2004 10:44:40 PM

thanks for the heads up....lol....i didn't really have any idea about it, but I saw the recipe and thought I'd post it. Oxygen definitely is a good thing!

2/22/2004 1:47:55 PM

Cameron,ontario Team Lunatic

Steve, thanks for directing me to these sites, very informative. Some pretty heavy reading for my pea sized brain, but after reading it a couple times it finally sunk in. I'm planning on incorporating teas into my patch and have nearly finished my homemade tea brewer. One question, I have lots of cuk. beetles during the season, would the use of sevin kill all my effective microrganisms or would I be better of using another product to control them. Maybe neem oil?

Phil

2/23/2004 8:03:44 PM