Tuesday, June 8, 2010

SFG up-date and Compost Tea



Things are progressing in the garden as well as could be expected after a week of wet weather. I've been seeing a lot on the internet about the benefits of the new method compost tea. In stead of just steeping a bag of compost in water as people have done for many years the new method says to add two tablespoons of molasses, a crushed 1000 milligram vitamin C tablet and some seaweed or fish emulsion to five gallons of water and to bubble air through this for 24 hours. The resulting tea is applied both to the foliage and soil in your garden and must be used immediately as it has a very short shelf life. From what I've been able to learn from the internet the enzymes, bacteria and fungi that develop in the tea are both a nutrient to the plant and help the plant to process the nutrients that are already in the soil.

Well I bought an aquarium air pump and some material to make compost tea bags from and I have made my first batch. I didn't add any seaweed or fish emulsion but the compost that I'm using is Seafood Compost. The first batch has been applied and the next batch is brewing. It is recommended that you reapply the tea every seven to ten days, with the size of my gardens that means I will likely always have a batch on the go, because by the time I finish one application it will be time to start over again.