compostless 'compost' tea

[highsakite]

hi all,

have been reading up on compost teas and have a few of questions...

1. is it possible to make a tea without compost, but use instead potting soil, worm casing, oyster shells, gecko poop and fresh green matter (grass cuttings etc) instead? (i have no compost or access to any)

2. can i add a small amount of powdered plant fertilizer to boost N-P-K?

3. can i use granulated fish food in a tea?

4. how about things like nettles?

5. can i heat all this together before putting in the airstones and brewing it?

thanks for any suggestions with this.

 

[bassclef]

just make worm casting tea or bottanical teas.. you can add a bit of guano and some black strap as well. careful with the guano. worm castings are compost.. just a worm compost instead of cow or chicken, etc.

 

[highsakite]

cool, thanks for the info, bassclef

 

[veinz]

maybe the wrong place to ask but what about pigeon manure??? is it ok to use it instead of the guano

 

[iwltfum]

hi all,

have been reading up on compost teas and have a few of questions...

1. is it possible to make a tea without compost, but use instead potting soil, worm casing, oyster shells, gecko poop and fresh green matter (grass cuttings etc) instead? (i have no compost or access to any)

2. can i add a small amount of powdered plant fertilizer to boost N-P-K?

3. can i use granulated fish food in a tea?

4. how about things like nettles?

5. can i heat all this together before putting in the airstones and brewing it?

thanks for any suggestions with this.

I've put so many things in compost teas over the years and it all works great. never tried fish food (but i have tried fish meal, which is ground sardines and which they feed to fish in fish farms). and i haven't tried heating it either, which could kill your living microbes.

The manures produced by different animals have a fairly wide range of NPK's. Fresh pigeon manure is 4.19/2.24/1.0 (on average) where fresh pig manure is .6/.4/.15 and the list goes on. Search google for NPK values of other things.

I have also used rock phosphate(not sustainable), bottled nutrients (account for more dilution depending on how hot your compost tea will be with out the bottled nutes, but the nutrients you get out of them tend to be more immediately available to the plant than things like manure, guano, and compost), wood ash, bat guano, extra microbes, yucca leaves, kelp, ect.

With many organic nutrients, there is a portion of them that is immediately available to the plant, and a portion that needs to be broken down over a certain period of time. This might take a bit of research to figure out for the materials you are using, but it's an important thing to keep track of or you could end up with some burning problems over time (esp. if you are using containers or planters).

Happy brewing

 

[iwltfum]

maybe the wrong place to ask but what about pigeon manure??? is it ok to use it instead of the guano

Desert bat guano has a higher N value and forest bat guano has a higher P value. If you intend to replace desert bat guano with pigeon manure it should work fine, but it will not be a good replacement for forest bat guano