BREWING TEA FOR THE FIRST TIME
- Thread starter #drgreenthumb
- Start date
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
Drop the liquid karma bro, pick up some granular humic acid, down to earth has two different kinds. It doesn't matter which one. Liquid karma is just humic acid and kelp with some yucca extract. If you're adding Kelp to your teas already you don't really need it. And you're getting humates from your Guano and castings or compost. You can add yucca extract to your teas if you want but it's just a wetting agent to help the water penetrate the soil. Just don't underwater your pots and you don't need it. Liquid karma is a huge ripoff.
5 gallons of water
1/2 cup of unsulphured Molasses
2 cups of compost or worm castings
1/2 cup of that all purpose Bat Guano for veg and your first two weeks of flower
(swap out for that high phosphorus seabird guano for the rest of flower)
1/4 cup of kelp
Brew for 24 to 48 hours. You can dilute with up to 15 gallons of water. Double the ingredients for larger quantity. Apply tea every third watering. Use just plain water last two weeks of flower.
Guaranteed success.
5 gallons of water
1/2 cup of unsulphured Molasses
2 cups of compost or worm castings
1/2 cup of that all purpose Bat Guano for veg and your first two weeks of flower
(swap out for that high phosphorus seabird guano for the rest of flower)
1/4 cup of kelp
Brew for 24 to 48 hours. You can dilute with up to 15 gallons of water. Double the ingredients for larger quantity. Apply tea every third watering. Use just plain water last two weeks of flower.
Guaranteed success.
GandalfdaGreen
Well-Known Member
bigskymtnguy
Well-Known Member
Agreed on the Liquid Karma, costs way too much for what it is. Granular kelp powder goes into my soil mix. I find the best use of kelp is as a foliar spray, and I buy my soluable kelp from Kelp4Less.com. A little goes a long way. I mix it with a few drops of molasses and mist morning and evening, with a day of yucca spray in between to clean the stomata (sp?). Don't forget to use alfalfa meal in your tea....great for veg.
bigskymtnguy
Well-Known Member
I drop a sump pump into my 55 gallon barrel of tea and pump directly onto the plants. Got a 1/2 hp pump that was made for "dirty" water and accepts very small solids. Hooks right up to garden hose. Still, I put anything other than really fine materials into a sock and let it soak, then squeeze a couple of times prior to pumping. The Kelp4Less.com Compost Tea Starter is the first ingredient in every sock. Even though solids make it through the pump, solids seem to sometimes clog the on/off control I have on the end of the hose. There are also a couple of air stones running all the time.
bigskymtnguy
Well-Known Member
You can go to your local farm and feed store and order 5 gallon buckets of molasses. WAAAAAAY cheaper than the grocery store.
GandalfdaGreen
Well-Known Member
Sounds really cool. That's a great idea. Kelp4less.com is a nice resource. I love hearing the many different ways to get things done.
GandalfdaGreen
Well-Known Member
Of course. There are a bunch of places. Look at the Kelp4Less.com site. Google the topics. Plenty of places.
I realize that there are a bunch of things to buy but in the long run you can customize and tweak your teas having all of your own stuff on hand. You also save money too.
I do appreciate the ease of having it premade though. After you do this though, you'll become a mad scientist like the rest of us. It's just too fun not to make your own!
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
The guano company makes a pre-made Guano tea product but I think you have to add Molasses still. And I'm talking about the granular one, not the liquid one.
But @GandalfdaGreen has the right of it, it's awesome being able to tweak and customize your recipes! And you start to feel like a chef in the kitchen sometimes. And it is cheaper. Especially when you can source your products in bulk.
DonBrennon
Well-Known Member
Just make sure you read the small print on the label or ask the shopkeeper about it. I bought some from a feed store, labeled just molasses on the front, but when I got it home, found it had been watered down and additives/vitamins included and I've still got it, might use it on the compost pile, not sure.
bigskymtnguy
Well-Known Member
The beauty of tea is the active aerobic microbial action. Once you put it with water in a bottle and put it on the shelf, you've lost the active microbial benefit. Might as well go back to Botanicare Pure Blend Pro and call it good. If you were to buy a dry mix, sometimes the ingredients don't store well together. "Man up" and buy the individual dry nutes.
greasemonkeymann
Well-Known Member
don't need too much of a different mix man
fish hydrosylate, kelp meal, and molasses will give you a good even moderate NPK.
OR
alfalfa meal, kelp and molasses
OR grow some comfrey and dandelions and use those (easy as hell)
you could also add bat guanos too if you'd like, you don't NEED all those ingredients.
Rasta Roy
Well-Known Member
You really don't. I work one room that is just recycled promix, I top with some local compost and use plain water. If plants start to look deficient I top with more compost and will use a bit of fish emulsion and molasses. Then I go back to plain water. That's it. No bloom boosters or additives.
GandalfdaGreen
Well-Known Member
Teas absolutely enhance everything about growing. They bring me closer to the plants. I've have never seen a negative thing from any tea I've run.
