I read all the posts re: old compost tea. I've avoided the compost tea issue as it sounds so complicated.

What is the SIMPLEST brew I can make? And I mean SIMPLE. I doubt I would rig up an aerator, etc. I wouldn't know what to do.

Please advise on how I might make a compost tea without doing anything complicated. I am absolutely non-mechanical, etc. Michelle

The simplest kind of compost tea is just to use an old pillowcase or nylon hose, put some (a shovelful or 2) of compost in it and immerse it into a bucket of water. I guess it is not nearly as good as the more complicated aerobic teas, but it is still good.

The aeration isn't hard at all. I use a kitty litter bucket with an aquarium bubbler. My aquarium is planted, so it doesn't need any oxygen, but the aquarium starter kit has the pump and air stone in it...so I put the air stone on the bottom of the bucket with a rock on it to hold it down, then fill it with water, and put a scoop of compost into an old pillowcase, like a teabag, and let it bubble all day long in the summer, and for 24 hours in the winter.

You can go one step simpler by eliminating the bag and just dump the compost into the bucket with water.

I stir my tea with a PVC pipe every couple of hours whether it's aerated or not.

Whether you use aerated or non-aerated tea brews, is up to you. I personally like to use my best aerobic teas for my heavy feeding plants, or my flowering plants, or for my most diseased-prone plants. I like to use my non-aerated teas, very diluted, for just quick simple nitrogen fertilization in the soil or on the plant, or as a biostimulant in my compost piles.

No matter how you make tea, try using a little molasses or some other natural sugar or syrup in your recipe. All sugars greatly increase microbial growth in teas or in compost piles. Plus molasses adds potassium, iron, and other micronutrients.

Check this out too:

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2002082739009975.html

Happy Gardening!

Dear Captain: In past posts you've talked about molasses and I think you said something about dry molasses from
the feed store. Can you be more specific and/or repeat your instructions. And, if one does the most simple compost tea, how would you add the mollases? Thanks. Michelle

Usually only 1-2 tblsp of liquid molasses per gallon of tea is sufficient for strong microbial growth in any type of tea brewing method.

Dry molasses is usually sold as a cattle feed product in 50 lb bags in farm feed stores. It is made from liquid molasses sprayed and dried on grain meal roughage like corn, oats, millet, or rice hulls. All sugars are high in carbon, thus they are powerful microbial energy foods. Liquid molasses is high in potassium, iron, and sulfur. Dry molasses is both a high energy microbial food fertilizer and soil amendment because of the grain meal flour in it.

Adding too much sugar (like cups of sugar per gallon of water) will do the opposite, by actually harming your soil! The excessive easily digestible carbons from the sugar, can create a high, temporary nitrogen deficiency in the soil, around plant roots. However a few tblsp of sugar per gallon of tea, won't hurt anything. The extra carbons from the sugar help chelate nitrogen and other nutrients in the tea, plus it will control odors, and help buffer and balance other nutrients, as the tea is applied as a foliar or soil drench.

When you aerate sugary teas in a brew, the extra aerobic bacteria and fungi growing in it, helps even more balance and buffer all the nutrients in the tea, so not to harm plant roots or foliage.

Non-aerated sugary teas will normally only grow aerobic and non-aerobic bacteria. Actualy in about 10 days or longer, if no extra stirring or aeration is applied to any tea, the entire tea batch will grow to a stinky anaerobic bacteria mixture. Not very good on plants.

All beneficial microbes in the top 6" of good topsoil are aerobic. Some anaerobic microbes are so dangerous that they can act like herbicides, if not diluted very well in teas! Plus some even can create an extremely acid temporary pH around 2-3, around plant roots or on foliage! Most aerobic microbes produce humates that have a high allkaline pH, near 7-8.

Aerated sugary teas tend to grow more aerobic bacteria and fungi. Some foods like corn meal and rotten fruit can be added to make a more fungal aerobic tea.

The more variety in nitrogen/carbon ingredient sources and variety in microbial species, makes a more powerful compost pile, or a more powerful compost tea.

Hope this helps!
Happy Gardening!

Captain, I have a quick question, the "liquid molassas sprayed & dried on grain meal roughage like corn, oats, millet or rice hulls," will that be the same thing as my uncle used on the farm called sweet feed? If not could sweet feed be used to accomplish the same puropse?

Absolutely! My favorite cheap soil amendment, and compost tea bacterial/fungal food ingredient is a 50 lb of cattle feed pellets, made from oats, wheat, corn, and molassses. It usually cost me about $4-6 per bag. It's good stuff!

All grain meals are high in protein, rich in NPK, and perfect for the microherd and earthworms. The extra molasses flavoring, just adds more power and energy to the microbial poipulations in the compost, soil, or in your tea brews.

Don't worry too much about the salt content in horse/cattle feeds. Make sure the label says that it's less than 0.7& to 1.0% per weight, and you will be ok. There is more salt per weight in seaweed teas or mulches, or my sweat that falls off my face, than that amount of NaCl salt anyway! (LOL)

Also molasses and Epsom salt balances and buffers small amounts of NaCl salt levels in tea solutions, and in the soil anyway, around plant roots and on plant foliage.