Feeding Plants With Liquid Death...

Context: weed tea and compost tea have microbiomes.
I know some microbes form partnerships with plants but ,making certain that only those "good" bugs are propagated will take extra steps that are finicky to a scattered mind like mine.

What if I the I kill just the microbiome in the  "tea" and feed the corpse soup to the plants ?
Heat, either from making biochar or from concentrated solar, would be my execution method of choice.

I suspect I'm overthinking this.
Most of the time my teas will be applied to living soils with their own biome that will hopefully deal with any  pathogens before they get to the plants.
For the times that I want to use it directly on plants,adding dried milk and a yogurt to the mix a few hours ahead of time might be adequate.

Those who use teas to feed your soil, what do you think?

Makes sense to me. I mean if you already have the biology in your soil you don't need to add anything living right? I do wonder how much the good bugs like/need to feed on living things as opposed to their corpses though.

I do use teas, worm compost with kelp and molasses for the garden, and comfrey tea for general use. But I have never tried to massacre them before I pour them where they are going. I have never had issues. I have used the worm leachate (dilluted) straight from the worm bin without anything pathological happening either.

In my dry, sandy soil, I don't worry about it too much. But if you have healthy and vibrant soil, maybe it's worth trying.

In the past I considered this from a different angle -- invasive weed seeds in a giant metal pot, boiled up to destroy their fertility. Produced during a char burn, of course. And then of course the liquor and dead seeds could be a simple additive to soil -- or could be added to composting/fermenting operations because of the newly created simple starches.

Wow that is a wacky idea. I like it!

I would not do that, as it is more work and counterproductive. Keep your tea aerated and use immediately, or make compost extract (compost vigorously stirred into water) and the “good” will vastly outnumber the “bad”. Living microbes perform many functions and recycle nutrients, while dead ones are just one time use nutrient packets. This is why a first tilling of a healthy ecosystem appears to help fertility, as the crops the following season feed on the corpses of the carpet bombed soil biome. Then fertility collapses and depends on inputs. Compost teas and extracts help invigorate nutrient cycling with predator-prey cycles of diverse living organisms.

Also, remember nothing in nature is intrinsically “good” or “bad”, those attributions are just our partially informed opinions. A small number of any “problem organism” is necessary to feed its predators, which then control the population without our work. I’d just mulch with the compost or chopped weeds instead of going through the work of making a tea only to kill it and then spread.

 Hey Ben.
I had gathered that the tea should be used after a certain number of hours of aeration, and further aeration propagates the "wrong" critters.
This need for getting the timing just right is what made  me look at thermal termination as a solution.

If I can just keep the liquid aerated and use as needed, this will be ideal .
I use lots of compost and I also compost in place, but I think an aerated liquid composter ( an aerobic  rather than anaerobic digester)  could speed nutrient cycling in a way similar to what chickens or rabbits do.
A  liquid fertilizer will be useful for seedlings , biochar activation, container grown plants , "greedy" plants like corn and  for adding to irrigation systems.
It is also potentially more portable than conventional compost, and easier to "sift".

I'm given to understand that anaerobic weed teas are mostly good at making minerals available, yet aquaponic systems seem to use highly aerated  mineralization tanks to do the same job.
I'm thinking both ways work , but the aerobic method is faster, less stinky and more energy intensive.


I now have  an airstone and working air pump at the same time, so maybe tomorrow  I'll start
aerating the barrel of swamp water I've been brewing.
I'd already used it "as is" to water some seeds before I thought better of it.
I'm curious what aerated digestion might do to seeds that struggle to germinate.
As a form of fermentation,  it might actually help.

William Bronson wrote:  
I now have  an airstone and working air pump at the same time, so maybe tomorrow  I'll start
aerating the barrel of swamp water I've been brewing.

Similar situation here. Lots of stinky barrels. I'll be interested to hear your results.

For what it's worth...

I aerate my compost tea while it is "steeping" for 24 hours.

My comfrey tea is anaerobic. The first time I made a 5 gallon bucket of it the lid was loose. I spent 2 hours looking around my property for the dead deer that I could smell. Finally figured out it was the comfrey and tightened the lid... After a month it wasn't anywhere near as bad smelling.

No scientific evidence here but I believe the compost tea has been allowing me to grow garden veggies in some pretty bad soil. My plants root balls are relatively tiny but thanks to the microbes I get pretty ok results. And when I water with my 10:1 diluted comfrey tea the plants perk up a lot. So it must be working eh?

check out JADAM - "the good and bad are one"
in my experience making weed tea and fish emulsion, the worse it smells, the more the plants love it
no aerating or boiling needed - keep it simple

Davis Tyler wrote:check out JADAM - "the good and bad are one"
in my experience making weed tea and fish emulsion, the worse it smells, the more the plants love it
no aerating or boiling needed - keep it simple

Haha, I like it -- especially regarding the smell test. I've been experimenting in that direction (lazy) but using it as a soak for biochar/compost/junk straw/wood chips before applying. Raspberries go nuts on that monster mix -- just dump the whole malordorous slurry on the patch. I don't apply directly to living annuals though, lest they be overwhelmed.

Well, I  bubbled the stinky barrel for a week.
It still stank.
I gave up on that idea and started watering  the cucumber beds with it.
I filtered the rest of it through charcoal and sawdust, then scooped the solids out.
Im bubbling the filtered liquid, and it is foaming and sweet.

Looking into JADAM I found a lot of people calling for industrial ingredients like sugar.
I've dug deeper, and now I'm watching this channel:



I've only just begun, but his logic appeals to me.
I am going to start another anaerobic barrel, this time with a spigot and some built in filtration.
I will use the resulting liquid like I would use urine.

Thanks for pointing me in this direction!

William Bronson wrote:Looking into JADAM I found a lot of people calling for industrial ingredients like sugar.

I agree that sugar is madness, but boiling discard potatoes for JADAM composting is said to be effective. Simplified starches to feed decomposers. I'm giving it a try in my half-IBC-tote composters this year. I collect excess leachate and use it elsewhere. We'll see.

Yes, this makes sense!
In the video Mr. Younsang Cho suggests any fruit and is adamant that sugar or even molasses is not only unneeded but undesirable.
I'm an inveterate scavenger, so I wouldn't turn down refined sugar products but I get what he is saying.

Fruit for him, potatoes for you‐ I aim to try Jerusalem artichokes.
I figured on tossing some of them in the freezer, to help break down the cell walls.
I just dug out almost 4 gallons of jchokes in the process of prepping an area for peppers.
I sifted through the soil pretty thoroughly,  but I'm sure they will be back.
When they show up I'll be certain to add them to the LAB centric barrel.

My wife just presented me with a cabbage that is a little long in the tooth- I pretty much squealed with delight!
The timing is perfect.
I think I might skip the rice wash step, or at least combine the cabbage/ jchoke cultivated strain with the rice wash/dairy cultivated strain.

Who knows I what else I might add!
True yams are looking pretty good, and if I can feed LAB on mulberry or grape leaves, well, look out!

I'm still looking into silage and oil topped pickles.
I'll be skipping the oil for now, but I might add an airlock.

One more thought.
I have a handful of tappable trees.
They never seemed worthwhile for me as a source of syrup,  but as a source of food for microbes...
Are there any unpasturized fermented sap drinks on the market?