Soil Food Web Gardening with Compost Teas

I totally support the No-Till method. Absolutely. For many reasons.

For aeration amendments, I'd stick with the Pumice.

You can soak the char in water with some EWC and Alfalfa overnight, then drain. That will populate the char with microbes as well as N

Currently I am using the "back to Eden" gardening method. Really it's just continuous deep mulching method. It will be a few years before I really see the benefits of it take off. I use whole tree mulch mixed with manure, cottonseed hulls, fine cedar fiber, mushroom compost & premilled (finely chopped for use in making alfalfa cubes for livestock) alfalfa. In a few years the bottom layer will have completely broken down into rich soil. Every year you add a couple inches of the mulch mix to add back what has been broken down. As rain and irrigation water leeches down through the mulch it turns into a compost tea of sorts and soaks into the ground below. No tilling. dig out a spot to bare soil, break that spot with a spade, plant and backfill the dug out mulch once the plant is big enough. After a few years I won't even be planting in the original soil. I'll be growing straight into the rich broken down humus. Best of all I get all of my whole tree mulch for free.

Great Stuff Wyo!

I like you guys so instead of making a post out in the general organics forum I'll hijack this thread for a second. I am wanting to go with a 100% organic AACT fed coco soilless mix for my bonsai mothers. I'll list the ingredients I have on hand and lets see what differing mixes you guys dream up.

I of course have coco coir for my base then:
perlite
vermiculite
EWC
greensand
soft rock phosphate
dolomite lime
alfalfa meal
blood meal
bone meal
crab meal
crushed oyster shell
azomite (rock dust)
cottonseed meal
humic acid
Jamaican bat guano
homemade yard compost
aged horse/cow/sheep manure
chicken manure
mushroom compost
Kelp meal

For my soil inoculants I have:
Great White myco
Azo extreme nitrogen fixing bacteria
Age Old Organics root rally
Age Old Organics water soluble myco

What would you organic doctors whip up with what I have on hand??

I am not a soil expert by any means but I have a bunch of coco and was thinking about doing this myself....here is what I was going to do:

Break up my coco, add 30-40% perlite (pumice would be better), and 25% good humus (EWC, compost, mushroom compost, etc)

To this mix, I would amend as follows:

Per cu.ft of above mix:

1/2 cup greensand
1/4 cup soft rock phosphate
1 1/2 cups dolomite
1 cup alfalfa meal
1/2 cup blood meal
1 cup bone meal
1 cup crab meal
1 cup oyster shell
1/2 cup azomite
1/2 cup cottonseed meal
a sprinkle of humic acid
1/4 cup guano
1/2 cup kelp meal

+ some aged manure if you really feel inclined, probably 2 or 3 cups


Then i'd sprinkle in a bunch of myco inoculants, and let it cook. Not sure how effective the N fixing bacteria will be unless your soil is above pH 7...but you have them so might as well throw em in...

This is very similar to the Rev's recipe in TLO, but instead of coco he uses a mix which is 25% soil 25% coco 25% perlite 25% humus (EWC, compost). I imagine you will have very similar results.

Good luck, and thanks for showin this thread some love


Also - that "Back to eden" style of gardening is great! Sheet mulch on sheet mulch on sheet mulch is the way to go! Never have to disturb the soil, and soon enough you will have an extremely rich layer of topsoil that will just keep getting better I remember reading about the "Ultimate sheet mulch" in Gaia's Garden - a home permaculture book - and thinking to myself that sheet mulch is the ideal way to tend a yard. Glad to see someone putting it into practice - if only I was sedentary enough to start building soils years in advance.... damn rental properties....

Keep up the good work Wyo!

Google "back to eden video". It's about an hour long. If you can put up with the religious aspect of it the method is pretty convincing.

Planting a "tea garden" this year as well. Specifically for feeding my plants.

Stinging Nettle
Yarrow
Comfery
Chamomile
Dandelion
Alfalfa

YES! I planted a medicinal garden last year at my place of work now I just need something at my house....

Where did you source these seeds? Or are you planting from starts? I'm looking for a source of all of those plants (except dandelion maybe)...much easier if I could just grow my own....

I imagine alfalfa, chamomile, and comfrey seeds are fairly easy to come by...but yarrow? nettle? I know wild sources but unfortunately I'm hundreds of miles away from those currently.

Do you own the book Permaculture: A designers manual by Bill Mollison? If not, you sound like the type of person who needs a copy...lol

That text is my bible...

Look on Amazon.

Don't be scared of dandelion. It's a amazing plant. Great for salad greens. Good adjunct additive in beer brewing.

Hey guys is it safe to brew compost tea in a cold area? I live in Phoenix and its not freezing but night time temps get into the low 40's-high 30's and my compost tea brews in my garage so say its about 10 degrees warmer in the garage. Is that too cold ???

I would say too cold. You're looking for a rapid multiplication of the microbes, but they're not going to multiply fast if really cold. Optimal temps are in 70s, as a reference.

Rrog said:

I would say too cold. You're looking for a rapid multiplication of the microbes, but they're not going to multiply fast if really cold. Optimal temps are in 70s, as a reference.

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Yeah thats what I figured.. I was a hydro grower for years and knew that if my water was above 70 I'd run into problems like root rot, so I kinda figured I needed to make my tea in the 70's so the micro life would not die off.

Aquarium heaters work amazing to keep your teas warm - go to a local pet store and they are like $15 - will keep your water hovering around 75-80 degrees. This is what I do to combat winter temps and it works great

Cann said:

Aquarium heaters work amazing to keep your teas warm - go to a local pet store and they are like $15 - will keep your water hovering around 75-80 degrees. This is what I do to combat winter temps and it works great

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Damn I was a hydro grower for years and totally forgot about that. Being in AZ its the opposite. Trying to keep your res cool!! lol

Yeah my veg room was in the 60's where my tea brewer is and I got zero foam in like 3 days as soon as I brought in a heater to bring my room temps up my tea started foaming.

If you go the aquarium heater route make sure to spend the extra cash and get a stainless steel heater. You won't have an oop and then a cuss fest with those. They also seem to last a lot longer. Stuff that sticks to a heater will cause hotspots on the element cover..... if it's glass you run a good chance of the temp differential will cause glass to crack. Had many a cheap heat bust on my. Got sick of buying new ones. Have had the same stainless heater for going on 7 years now.

WyoGrow said:

If you go the aquarium heater route make sure to spend the extra cash and get a stainless steel heater. You won't have an oop and then a cuss fest with those. They also seem to last a lot longer. Stuff that sticks to a heater will cause hotspots on the element cover..... if it's glass you run a good chance of the temp differential will cause glass to crack. Had many a cheap heat bust on my. Got sick of buying new ones. Have had the same stainless heater for going on 7 years now.

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Ahh thanks for the heads up, I purchased a 40 dollar 100W heater , but it's glass.. I wont have to use it very long because I live in AZ and winter temps dont last very long. Got this at Petsmart but I double checked my tea brewing before I left this morning and there was a good amount of foam and the water felt about 70 degrees.

WyoGrow said:

Currently I am using the "back to Eden" gardening method. Really it's just continuous deep mulching method. It will be a few years before I really see the benefits of it take off. I use whole tree mulch mixed with manure, cottonseed hulls, fine cedar fiber, mushroom compost & premilled (finely chopped for use in making alfalfa cubes for livestock) alfalfa. In a few years the bottom layer will have completely broken down into rich soil. Every year you add a couple inches of the mulch mix to add back what has been broken down. As rain and irrigation water leeches down through the mulch it turns into a compost tea of sorts and soaks into the ground below. No tilling. dig out a spot to bare soil, break that spot with a spade, plant and backfill the dug out mulch once the plant is big enough. After a few years I won't even be planting in the original soil. I'll be growing straight into the rich broken down humus. Best of all I get all of my whole tree mulch for free.

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...nice! I've been doing the same for a couple years now...I posted pics somewhere early in this thread of my plot....my inspiration was a woman by the name of Ruth Stout...she has books and used to have videos on youtube....here's some of her words. I'll be posting more pics of my veggie garden this year soon....stick around

...some words from Ruth:
My no-work gardening method is simply to keep a thick mulch of any vegetable matter that rots on both my vegetable and flower garden all year round. As it decays and enriches the soil, I add more. The labor-saving part of my system is that I never plow, spade, sow a cover crop, harrow, hoe, cultivate, weed, water or spray. I use just one fertilizer (cottonseed or soybean meal), and I don't go through that tortuous business of building a compost pile.
I beg everyone to start with a mulch 8 inches deep; otherwise, weeds may come through, and it would be a pity to be discouraged at the very start. But when I am asked how many bales (or tons) of hay are necessary to cover any given area, I can't answer from my own experience, for I gardened in this way for years before I had any idea of writing about it, and therefore didn't keep track of such details.
However, I now have some information on this from Dick Clemence, my A-Number-One adviser. He says, "I should think of 25 50-pound bales as about the minimum for 50 feet by 50 feet, or about a half-ton of loose hay. That should give a fair starting cover, but an equal quantity in reserve would be desirable." That is a better answer than the one I have been giving, which is: You need at least twice as much as you would think.
[h=3]What Should I Use for Mulch?[/h]Spoiled or regular hay, straw, leaves, pine needles, sawdust, weeds, garbage — any vegetable matter that rots.
[h=3]Don't Some Leaves Decay Too Slowly?[/h]No, they just remain mulch longer, which cuts down on labor.

Don't they mat down? If so, it doesn't matter because they are between the rows of growing things and not on top of them.

Can one use leaves without hay? Yes, but a combination of the two is better, I think.

What is spoiled hay? It's hay that for some reason isn't good enough to feed livestock. It may have, for instance, become moldy — if it was moist when put in the haymow — but it is just as effective for mulching as good hay, and a great deal cheaper.

Shouldn't the hay be chopped? Well, I don't have mine chopped and I don't have a terrible time — and I'm 76 and no stronger than the average person.
Can you use grass clippings? Yes, but unless you have a huge lawn or have neighbors who will collect them for you, they don't go very far.
[h=3]How Do You Sow Seeds into the Mulch?[/h]You plant exactly as you always have, in the Earth. You pull back the mulch and put the seeds in the ground and cover them just as you would if you had never heard of mulching.
[h=3]Isn't It Bad to Mulch with Hay That May Be Full of Weed Seeds?[/h]If the mulch is thick enough, the weeds can't come through it.
One man in a group I addressed was determined not to let me get away with claiming that it was all right to throw a lot of hay full of grass seeds on one's garden, and the rest of the audience was with him. I was getting nowhere and was bordering on desperation, when, finally, I asked him:
"If you were going to make a lawn, would you plant the grass seed and then cover it with several inches of hay?" Put that way, he at last realized that a lot of hay on top of tiny seeds would keep them from germinating.
However, it's true that you can lay chunks of baled hay between the rows of vegetables in your garden and, in a wet season, have a hearty growth of weeds right on top of the hay. To kill unwanted weeds all you need do is turn over the chunk of hay. Now, this isn't much of a job but some ardent disciples of my system are capable of getting indignant with me (in a nice way, of course) because they are put to that bother. I have relieved them of all plowing, hoeing, cultivating, weeding, watering, spraying and making compost piles; how is it that I haven't thought of some way to avoid this turning over of those chunks of hay?
[h=3]How Can You Safely Plant Little Seeds Between 8-inch Walls of Mulch?[/h]One can't, of course, but almost before one gets through spreading it, the mulch begins to settle and soon becomes a 2- or 3-inch compact mass rather than an 8-inch fluffy one. It will no doubt be walked on, and rain may come; in any case, it will settle. As a matter of fact you won't need 8 inches to start if you use solid chunks of baled hay.
[h=3]Many People Want to Know Why I Don't Use Manure and What I Have Against It[/h]I have nothing at all against it; in fact, I have a somewhat exaggerated respect for it. But I no longer need it; the ever-rotting mulch takes its place.
I sort of complained, in my first book, that no one ever wrote an ode to manure, and through the years since then at least a half-dozen people have sent me poems they composed about manure piles.
I have been asked over and over if such things as sawdust and oak leaves should be avoided, the idea being that they make the soil too acidic. I use sawdust, primarily around raspberries, with excellent results. We have no oak trees, therefore I can't answer that question from experience, but I certainly wouldn't hesitate to use them; then, if it turned out that they were making the soil acidic, I would add some wood ashes or lime. I've had reports from a great many gardeners who have used both sawdust and oak leaves over their entire garden and have found them satisfactory.

How Often Do You Put on Mulch?

Whenever you see a spot that needs it. If weeds begin to peep through anywhere, just toss an armful of hay on them. What time of year do you start to mulch? The answer is now, whatever the date may be, or at least begin to gather your material. At the very least give the matter constructive thought at one; make plans. If you are intending to use leaves, you will unfortunately have to wait until they fall, but you can be prepared to make use of them the moment they drop. Should you spread manure and plow it under before you mulch? Yes, if your soil isn't very rich; otherwise, mulch alone will answer the purpose.
[h=3]How Far Apart Are the Rows?[/h]Exactly the same distance as if you weren't mulching — that is, when you begin to use my method. However, after you have mulched for a few years, your soil will become so rich from rotting vegetable matter that you can plant much more closely than one dares to in the old-fashioned way of gardening.
[h=3]How Long Does the Mulch Last?[/h]That depends on the kind you use. Try always to have some in reserve, so that it can replenished as needed.
[h=3]Now for the Million Dollar Question: Where Do You Get Mulch?[/h]That's difficult to answer but I can say this: If enough people in any community demand it, I believe that someone will be eager to supply it. At least that's what happened within a distance of 100 miles or so of us in Connecticut, and within a year after my book came out, anyone in that radius could get all the spoiled hay they wanted at 65 cents a bale.
If you belong to a garden club, why can't you all get together and create a demand for spoiled hay? If you don't belong to a group, you probably at least know quite a few people who garden and who would be pleased to join the project.
Use all the leaves you can find. Clip your cornstalks into footlength pieces and use them. Utilize your garbage, tops of perennials, any and all vegetable matter that rots. In many localities, the utility companies grind up the branches they cut off when they clear the wires; and often they are glad to dump them near your garden, with no charge. But hurry up before they find out that there is a big demand for them and they decide to make a fast buck. These wood chips make a splendid mulch; I suggest you just ignore anyone who tells you they are too acidic.
Recently, a man reproached me for making spoiled hay so popular that he can no longer get it for nothing. The important fact, however, is that it has become available and is relatively cheap. The other day a neighbor said to me, "Doesn't it make you feel good to see the piles of hay in so many yards when you drive around?" It does make me feel fine.
Now and then I am asked (usually by an irritated expert) why I think I invented mulching. Well, naturally, I don't think so; God invented it simply by deciding to have the leaves fall off the trees once a year. I don't even think that I'm the first, or only person, who thought up my particular variety of year-round mulching, but apparently I'm the first to make a big noise about it — writing, talking, demonstrating. And since in the process of spreading this great news, I have run across many thousands who never heard of the method, and a few hundred who think it is insane and can't possibly work, and only two people who had already tried it, is it surprising that I have carelessly fallen into the bad habit of sounding as though I thought I originated it?

Here's Ruth's little book: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QRToC.html

Rrog said:

Here's Ruth's little book: http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/QR/QRToC.html

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...awesome man!
R.I.P. Ruth, your words are living on today baby..."the mulch queen!" ...we love you!