Dear Allan, I tend to be very much like Lloyd Charles with compost teas. I use what I have, sometimes the compost tea will be made from shark that has been rotted down for 6 months in water, it is then ran through flowforms. BD preps 502-507 are added at this stage. Diluted down at 400:1 (1/2litre per 200 litre) this then becomes the first step in the manufacture of the teas. Next I add a couple of handfuls of barrel compost to the mix, a feed dipper of kelp powder, 8 inches of compost in the bottom of the drum and a couple of cups of molasses per 44 gallon drum. After about 1 day the brew starts to work, it actually bubbles by itself in much the same way as good champagne. the drums are not filled quite to the top to give room for the tea to work. Stir each drum for 5 minutes per day. The tea is ready when it starts to feel like a gel, it feels very silky. Depending on the temperature this can take 3-4 days. We can keep this brew going for ages just by decanting the fluid off into the spray tank on the tractor, then filling it back up again with spring water and more molasses. It seems that like good compost some of the previous brew left in the drum gets the next lot of tea off to a good start. The example of working by the feel comes from a great Australian winemaker, Murray Tyrell, who made all of his wine by feel.He would just put his arm into the vat and he could tell exactly what needs to be done next. Any fermentation process is the same, it is the feel of what you are doing that is important. How you can ever make compost teas by sending them away to someone else to analyse, when the analysis would be different by the time that the test came back is beyond my comprehension. You need to follow your intuition and observations, after all the object of the game is to develop our perceptual ability, to try and understand just how nature works. Gain as much knowledge of our subjects that we can, then work with it and develop our own understandings. Sincere best wishes from the Land of the Wizards of Oz. James
-- Original Message ----- From: "Allan Balliett" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 1:19 PM Subject: Re: vortex pump > Thanks for your very good post, James Hedley! > > Do you mind taking the time to talk in more detail about how the > stages of barrel compost tea smell or feel? > > Thanks > > -Allan > > >The complexity which is being brought into this discussion would deter most > >people from even attempting to make compost teas. Chinese market gardeners > >have long realised the advantage of having a drum with manure in it and > >watering it around their plants. The best indicator of what is happening to > >your compost teas is your nose, or just put your hands in it for a while, it > >will soon tell you what stage it is up to. > >
