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 Post subject: Applying compost tea
PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 4:43 am 
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Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2003 6:09 am
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Location: watauga,tx
I have been brewing compost tea for about a year now and spraying as a foliar feeding for my plants usually once a month. I was wondering how often one could spray without over fertilizing?
Thanks,
Dean


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PostPosted: Tue Jul 15, 2003 3:04 pm 
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I think that depends on what you're putting in your tea. If you're using dechlorinated water; excellent, finished compost; seaweed; alfalfa; rock dust; molasses; corn meal; and plenty of air; then I think the limit for using the tea is 5 times a day :shock:

But seriously, I don't think you can over use it. Tea is mostly microbes anyway. If you use alfalfa in it, it might have some free nitrogen, but still, I don't think you can overdo it. Actually if you were putting blood meal in it, I would not use the stuff on the plants but maybe on the soil.

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PostPosted: Wed Jul 16, 2003 9:27 am 
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I was just reading a recent article supported by SoilFoodWeb.com and the Earth Tea Brewer folks, that said that if your tea is good, sweet smelling, very aerobic, full of beneficial fungi, you can NOT foliar spray your plants too much!

Now I foliar/soil drench my plants all the time using an unstrain aerated tea brew using a narrow bottle and a 5 gallon bucket to transport it all over the garden beds. I use this method as a substitute for watering most of my plants. I feed and water at the same time. I haven't used the water hose on my garden beds in about 2-3 months now! Pretty incredible huh?

I've been feeding my sweet corn tea about 2-3 times a week. I just picked my first dozen ears of corn today. It is beautiful! Even with the crazy weather, and increased Japanese beetle infestations here, I still got perfect filled ears!

I read also on http://www.intlctc.org/ that you also mix natural pesticides with your teas, if needed. I sprayed a diluted chewing tobacco tea on mycorn to kill JB's for about 2 weeks in June. After each spraying, I covered my plants withn extra aerated fertilizing/biostimulant compost tea brews. I see lots of extra bees on my flowers now, but no JB's! It worked, and I had minimal effects on my beneficials and microbial populations.

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 2:33 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 12:12 pm
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Location: Dallas,TEXAS
Is there an economical sprayer that can accomodate compost tea for distribution on large lawns? I have seen a $550 sprayer, but that's a bit out of most of our budgets.

Other than filtering with panty hose and find-mesh laundry bags, does anyone know of other ways to filter the tea?

Creating (most of the time is getting de-chlorinated water) and brewing the tea is quick, it's the filtering and distribution that's somewhat ackward.

Thanks in advance for the responses and thank you Captain Compost for a great receipe!!!

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 3:03 pm 
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Instead of using a sprayer on large lawns or gardens, why not just use a portable bucket and some sort of cup or bottle to soil drench?

It works great! It's fast, and all you got to do is sling it all over your soil in a soil drench fashion. Plus you don't have to strain it either. I love unstrained teas. They contain more beneficial fungi and other microbes, rather than just aerobic bacteria from strained aerated tea applications.

I use this method on my acre of lawn and garden areas.

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PostPosted: Wed Aug 06, 2003 4:53 pm 
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Joined: Sat Mar 08, 2003 6:45 pm
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Location: San Antonio,Tx
Achy-Breaky:

No help here with the spray rig but...

Pantie hose work great for me but for a tea solution to work in my fine mist sprayer, used indoors, I use a cone shaped paint filter. As the filter plugs up, just dump it back into the tea bucket and rinse the filter out. Filter can be used many times. To stablize the paper paint filter, place it into a hard funnel.

Regarding the water: Draw the water you need and let it sit for 12-24 hrs. and it will outgas the clorine. Think of it this way; you always have to add clorine to a swimming pool.

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