Setec Astronomy wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 1:08 pm I guess i haven't been doing this gardening thing long enough, I thought this was going to be something for, you know, drinkable tea, not compost tea.

Plantaholic12 wrote: ↑Sun Sep 10, 2023 12:53 pm JRinPA asked for a thread on my tea brewer.
Reminded me of " got any photos of your grandkids " kind of request.
Got any coffee?

When I started the current garden ( twenty years ago ) I dug up the yard and found clay. Mostly red but some blue\grey. My previous garden was in black granite loam and I knew I was in trouble. I ran across a potting mix manufacturer about a mile away from the house and based my raised beds on the products I could buy at the potting mix factory. The Willamette Valley ( where I am ) is a nursery wonderland, can't swing a rake without hitting a pile of used pots.

Problem that I found was that the potting mixes were soil-less. They had a compost from a regional dairy co-op ( they ran a co-gen plant and compost facility ) and I figured I'd mix the poop and the potting mix for my raised beds.
Then my research found a Oregon State University professor that was developing a business based on compost tea. Seemed like a good way to put live microbes in my potting/poop beds.

Now "compost" as an ingredient for a nutrient booster is like wheat in a bread recipe, I'd like a more defined ingredient. Your compost and my compost and Fred's compost might be different. Then I found a web site using ( and giving a recipe for ) compost tea based on worm poop. Just worm poop and some other named ingredients like molasses and fish hydrolysate ( cold pressed fish rather than boiled fish ) and kelp.

And the recipe was for your typical 5 gallon aquarium brewer. Not big enough...more research...30 gallon brewer ( $4000.00! ) and up. Small African country brewer. I can go big!!

So I found a company selling tanks with a cone bottom...and upped the aquarium air pump to a hydronics air pump and learned about vortex brewing for air mixing and started down the slippery slope...
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The air pump pumps into the bottom pipe which forces air up and across the tank and forms a vortex which soaks the poop in the bag and the mirobes are mixed with the water/other ingredients.
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After 24 hours the "tea" is drained off and applied to the garden.
My water is from the well in the yard.

Any questions?

Tom

Cole_Robbie wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 12:11 pmI once talked to a guy who worked for a beneficial microbes company making products for plants and he swore that he drank an ounce of his product every day.

Stitchingmom wrote: ↑Mon Sep 11, 2023 1:56 pm I thought this was about TEA!! -Cindy, the Tea Snob.

JRinPA wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 1:52 pm I'm surprised that you don't have your own vermicompost bin. It is not for everyone though, messy work, one more thing to worry about. If you have a local source, best of both worlds, really.

I like that setup.

Cole_Robbie wrote: ↑Wed Sep 13, 2023 2:00 pm On a related note, mealworm frass is supposed to be excellent for plants, too. I still want a mealworm farm.