Being a busy/lazy organic Gardener, or maybe it's LAZY/ busy organic Gardener. Either way I tend to add organic
compost (that I bought because I suck at composting, and even if I was great at it would never be able to produce
enough.) Twice a year when I switch from summer to winter crops. I also make up a mix of the organic fertilizer I have on hand which may include things like blood meal, bone meal, azomite, green sand, A general organic fertilizer that has mycorrhiza in it. I will mix it up, and throw a light dusting on the soil. Top it with compost. Mix it a little, trying not to disturb the soil underneath. I plant my plants,
water and hope for the best.
This year I saw my sister-in-laws watermelon that looked and produced way better than mine using that which shall not be named. My son telling me about a customer who's pepper plants put mine to shame used 10-10-10, why didn't I try that.
After pouting and licking my wounds a bit I started to think maybe I need to do more.
First I tried a little liquid organic fish fertilizer with an organic bloom fertilizer it was 0-.05-.07. I tried this once a week for about 3 weeks. With no noticable results. About 4 weeks ago I noticed everything was kind of stalled. The plants looked healthy, but just weren't doing anything. So I decided to try a worm casting tea. The castings had sat out in the open a long time. The tea was super light in color. I used it, but was pretty sure it was mostly water. I tried again. This time I dug in a spot I used to have a compost pile, I dug in the
chicken yard in a place that used to be
wood chips, so soil, composted wood, and of
course chicken poop. I added a little of that organic compost (bought) organic fish fertilizer, and the bloom fertilizer. Plus a bit of molasses. I filled the 5 gallon
bucket. Stirred, and noticed it was about 1/2 compost. This wasn't good. So I put 1/2 in another bucket. Thank goodness my bubbler has 2 air stones. ( know some of you are cringing with my lack of recipe, or measuring, but that's how I roll)
When I started it was getting dark, so I did a 25,% tea, 75% water. I watered the veggies first, then poured the tea around the base of each plant.
To be fair the the temperature did go down, and I know that makes a big difference, but I started noticing a lot more production. My cucumber had stopped completely, and now there's a lot, and blooms. My egg plant is loaded. The pepper are growing peppers, way more than before.
The weather may be helping, I believe the compost tea has helped the veggies thrive through the part of summer that they usually endure. Also I always get aphids in late August. Not this year. Now it may be just luck. It may be that I haven't used any bug killer organic or other in about 3 years, so maybe nature is balancing. But I wonder if the compost tea helped. I'm definitely going to add compost tea to my garden practice. I'm not the type of person to do it every two weeks, or even on a regular basis, but you can bet when trouble is brewing, so will the compost tea.
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