hoping izzy will post about compost teas and soil

[garrett]

smiles
iffin ya wanna?
we's allllllllllllll ears. ;D ;D

[annclaire]

I'm not Izzy, but I use compost tea every week and amend my soil with everything I can get on the garden over the winter ... what's left goes in the compost piles to percolate over the winter for the spring.

I brew my compost tea in a plastic garbage pail that I have under a downspout ... just a left over net bag from potatoes or onions stuffed full of medium size compost and let it brew for a day or two to get started, and replenished once a week with new material.

I am also adding bunny poo to everything ... garden beds and compost piles. It goes straight on, no 'percolating' needed ;D

[garrett]

good philosophy ac.smiles

[bluelacedredhead]

I often make Comfrey Tea for the plants. Same idea; leaves steeped in a bucket or barrel of water. I use it in the garden and also to wet down compost as comfrey is a compost accelerator.

When I had aquariums I used aquarium water to feed my houseplants. They were the greenest and lushest ever. Haven't looked like that since I gave up raising fish.

[bella]

Mar 1, 2012 13:19:33 GMT -5 annclaire said:

I'm not Izzy, but I use compost tea every week and amend my soil with everything I can get on the garden over the winter ... what's left goes in the compost piles to percolate over the winter for the spring.

I brew my compost tea in a plastic garbage pail that I have under a downspout ... just a left over net bag from potatoes or onions stuffed full of medium size compost and let it brew for a day or two to get started, and replenished once a week with new material.

I am also adding bunny poo to everything ... garden beds and compost piles. It goes straight on, no 'percolating' needed ;D

Ann, how long do you let this tea sit before adding to the garden or wherever?? I sometimes throw peelings, etc. in the garden over winter, but that's more likely to attract animals.

[annclaire]

Bella, I usually like to give it a couple of days if the sun is heating the water good. Basically, it is ready when you dip a bit of the water and it isn't clear any more ... and it is really good to go when it looks like a robust tea.

I also pick the bag up and dunk it a couple of times each time I go by the barrel to help circulate the water in and out of the compost. Like dunking a tea bag in a cup of hot tea ;D

As for peelings in the garden ... store your little hand trowel by the back door (or whatever door you go out ) and peel a little hole for the peelings and pat the soil back down on top ... that should keep varmints from browsing in your garden.

One lady over on yahoo group SFG keeps her kitchen scraps in a bowl in the fridge and just digs a hole with a shovel once a week to bury the scraps in the garden. And, she leaves 12" between rows of holes and plants in the leaveout area in the spring, which makes the row of holes into automatic fertilizer rows in the summer ;D

[annclaire]

Here in my semi-arid area, the biggest secret to a successful compost pile is not heat, but water! If we are going to have a hard freeze, I go out that morning and drag out the garden hose ... OK, I have an old hose that stays out all the time that will be trashed when I buy the new garden hose this year, and the hose from 2 years ago will become the new winter hose ;D ... anyway, I hook up the hose and drench all my compost piles that are basically full of fall leaves and the last of the grass clippings. I don't shred my leaves, but I don't need to because the drenching before a hard freeze helps break down the leaves. It is the freeze/thaw cycle that does most of the work over the winter. You can tell you have a good setup when you water in the winter if you have a bunch of bugs come out ... they are finding enough warmth and hibernation spots in the pile and when the sun warms it up they get moving and chomping and breaking down whats percolating.

Another couple of weeks and I'll be able to remove the top retaining fencing from my compost piles because they have reduced that much since I put them together in November, and topped them off in December back to the 4' height. I have 2 round cages over stumps, but the 3 wire bins are 3.5'x3.5'x4' ... just over a cubic yard per cage when full and I will get about 3'x3'x2.5' of compost out of each of them ... so about 1.5 cu.yd of finished compost for the spring gardens ... although I will probably put about half a cu.yd back for potting and next spring seed sprouting.

And these bins will produce that 2x per year ;D With very little effort on my part ... I don't turn them at all, just keep filling them up and watering them down.

[garrett]

good advice ac.

[marielouise]

I keep a covered container for kitchen scraps in the cabinet--- during bad cold rainey weather I bring a 5 gal. bucket with lid to the porch to save on trips out to the pile... When its full I carry it out and BURY it in the pile either the bucket or the inside container, --- then rinse the container out and pour that rinse water on top of where I buried the scraps...


In times past, in winter, we would run a trench down a future row , the scraps would be dumped into that trench then covered with the mound of dirt next to the row , til we finished out that row then do the next row.

We make manure tea in 55 gal drums, 4 or 5 5gal buckets fresh manure, per drum, filled with water and left to sit---stirring it once in awhile .. After a couple weeks then we stir up that mixture , dip out some into a 5 gal bucket --weaken that to a tea color --it will be very dark coming out of drum, Tea color is what we pour around each plant .... Then refilll same drum with water and keep stirred til next time we fertlizer.

[garrett]

we loves composting and teas.lol

[garrett]

gonna dump that load of wood i picked up today in the new garden.
nitrogen robbing be damned.lol