Post Punk Kitchen Forum

double post sorry! read below.
xo
kittee

Vegan fertilizing has always been a problem for me. Since I don't know what to use, I generally don't do it. But my friend Ariel, who gardens for a living, told me about making compost tea. I thought I knew what this was, but apparently I didn't and now I'm psyched about it. So basically, when you mix compost and water together to make tea, you need to aerate it to grow microbes that will help your soil and your plants. Apparently just adding water to compost isn't enough. Aerated compost tea is supposed to be this amazing stuff, even better than applying straight up compost. I am going for it and buying all the equipment today. I've done research and it should only cost about 25 bucks to put one together, even cheaper if you can find a lidded 5 gallon bucket for free.

Anyone done this or want to do it with me? You can find articles about it all over the web, I'm making the kind that uses an aquarium pump.
The link will open a .pdf that explains everything, complete with photos. http://dchall.home.texas.net/organic/teamaker/PDFs/brewer.pdf

xo
kittee

Go Kittee, go Kittee, go! I'm all about doing this too--I'm just in the middle of major projects this year: moving, selling, and I'm amazed I planted anything at all this year!

I think I'll start one at work, though.

Interesting! I also thought compost tea just involved letting it sit in water for a while. I bet there are lots of failed, aquarium hobbyists trying to get rid of stuff on Craigslist, too.

I'm in! I've even got lots of 5 gallon lidded buckets sitting in the barn. Thanks for posting the pdf.

i want a free bucket. i used to get all the free buckets when i worked at wholefoods, but i doubt they'd give them up to me. hrm.
yup, call prepared foods if you live near one, they have lots! yay pickle buckets.
xo
kittee

I bought the air stones to do this but never got around to it. I have a friend who has devised his own fairly complicated system for doing it and he gives away the tea. The aeration is *very* important. If you let it go anaerobic it stinks and the bacteria that thrive in anaerobic tea are usually harmful to plants. Keep up updated. Maybe I will drag out my stuff and give it a go with my vermicompost.

You might also be interested in Beneficial Indigenous Microorganisms and Bug Juice. I made a few BIM brews last year and poured them around my pear tree. It seems very happy this spring, but it might be all the rain we have had.

Thanks for those links! I love gardenweb, but it's hard to navigate. I'm going to pick up supplies for this today!
xo
kittee

I'm so excited to see how this works for you! I'm not able to do this with my garden right now but I'm going to bring this up to my friend who I think would be interested.