Great site about compost tea

When I got started on compost tea, which was about 20 years ago, this guy set up this website and showed people lots of cool info.  There was a compost tea discussion group on the old Yahoo groups, with Ellaine Ingham and Jeff Lowenfels chiming in frequently.  This guy used to sell a compost tea brewer, but his site is amazingly full of information.  

http://microbeorganics.com/


When I first started brewing compost tea, I had about $250 worth of plants that were dying and I couldn't figure out why.  People told me to spray synthetic herbicides, fungicides, and pesticides.  That didn't seem like the best way to go.  I started brewing and never looked back.  It makes an  enormous difference. There are certain plants in my climate that would be extremely diseased without it.  With it, they are fine and healthy.  It helps build the strength of the soil, plants and positive microbes to fight off the disease-carrying ones.
John S
PDX OR

This site is amazing, as is the person who made it.

I'm glad I added mycorrhizal inoculant to the soil around the fruit trees I just planted, but I'll be making some compost tea using the recipe on this site, just to make sure the soil is alive and well. I don't know if I'll build a crazy brewer (probably just start out with the "Stir Method"), but I will be experimenting and breaking out my microscope.

I found the info about black strap molasses especially interesting--so many uses for BSM.

I started with the 5 gallon bucket method and aquarium bubblers.  Now I have greatly advanced to two 5 gallon buckets and more aquarium bubblers :).

I separated between the fungal compost tea and the bacterial compost tea, because different plants have different issues, diseases and needs.  At first, I was trying to save deathly blackened sick looking plants from dying.  Now I am ensuring a balanced, thriving, nutrient-rich diversity among the soil, plants, fungi, and microbes in my garden ecosystem.  I just have a standard suburban garden, so I don't have need of a giant, expensive machine.  However, the same soil food health principles apply, whether it's to a postage stamp garden, acreage, or a giant farm.  

Just another tool that many use to heal and improve the damage that we have done to our ecology.

John S
PDX OR