Viewing frostweed's Garden Diary: Making Aerated Compost Tea.

Saturday, January 20, 2007 Starting the Tea. #1 Well Guys, this is how we made the aerated compost tea. We got a 10 gallon capacity aquarium pump with three hoses and three filter stones from Petsmart for $13.00. We already had the 5 gallon bucket. Here is the bucket 3/4 full of water from the faucet. We let it buble 24 hours to get rid of the chlorine. Click to view Friday, January 19, 2007 The Ingredients #2 Here is the homemade compost and the molasses to be added. About 12 cups of compost and 1/2 cup of molasses. Click to view Thursday, January 18, 2007 Adding the Compost. # 3 Adding the compost. We did this in the garage. Click to view Wednesday, January 17, 2007 Adding the Molasses. #4 About 1/2 cupful. Click to view Tuesday, January 16, 2007 Stirring the Mix. #5 Stirring the mix, with a broomstick, it was handy. Click to view Monday, January 15, 2007 The First Day, #6 The first day, just bubbles. Click to view Sunday, January 14, 2007 The Second day. #7 The second day, foam is forming, smells nice and yeasty. Click to view Saturday, January 13, 2007 The Third Day. #8 The third day, full of foam, and ready to strain. Click to view Friday, January 12, 2007 Getting ready to strain the tea. #9 We went to the patio to do the straining. Here is the 25 inch tulle square and the strainer. The tulle worked superb, it strained everything great and it rinsed off totally clean for another use. Click to view Thursday, January 11, 2007 The tea is black and rich. #10 Straining the tea, it looks black and rich, we used it full strength. Click to view Wednesday, January 10, 2007 Feeding the plants. #11 These are some of the plants that we gave the tea, they look rather yellow. We sprayed the leaves and soil saturated the soil, 4-23-06 We will look at them again in two weeks and see what difference it made. Click to view Tuesday, January 9, 2007 Another group. #12 One more group, for good measure. Click to view Monday, January 8, 2007 Some of the results. #13 Well, these pictures were taken 2 weeks after the compost tea was applied. I see no improvement in the plant in the center, the plant on the right looks much improved and the one on the left just slightly improved. All in all, not as much improvement as I had anticipated. I will take a picture again two weeks from now, and see what happens. Click to view Saturday, January 6, 2007 The Seedlings #15 The seedlings are much improved in color also. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures two weeks after this, so I can't show the end result, but they were all greatly improved. Click to view Friday, January 5, 2007 Second try with the bag method. #16 Well Guys, here is my report on my second experience with aerated compost tea. We made this one from a fresh batch of compost using 12 cups, and 1/2 cup of molasses and putting it in the tulle bag that I made from the 25 inch square. We inserted one of the pump tubes in the bag and tied the top with a twist tie. Here is my husband holding the bag. Click to view Thursday, January 4, 2007 The first day. #17 The first day, no foam. Click to view Wednesday, January 3, 2007 Second day. #18 Second day, a little bit of foam. Click to view Tuesday, January 2, 2007 The Third Day. #19 Third day, some foam. It was a lot easier because we didn't have to strain the tea. The bag rinsed out really well. I didn't do any plant comparisons this time, but I do like the bag method much better. Click to view Monday, January 1, 2007 And that is my Story. #20 I hope this will be of help to a lot of people. I love compost and Organic Gardening. Here is a link to the entire thread; http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/580157/ Sincerely; Josephine.

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