Well, maybe not a lifetime supply, but what I did today should last quite a while.
I’ve been listening to the local gardening show on the radio on saturday mornings for quite a while, and on Saturday they were talking about this supercharged compost tea they were making and selling by the 1/2 gallon. Well, Screw that, I’ve got too many plants to worry about getting compost tea by the gallon or half gallon, and I’ve made it before. I have a little aquarium bubbler and a trash can I’ve used to make it, but I just hadn’t in quite a while.
So I went to the store (Rail City Garden Center, down in Sparks) and after a little searching with the staff, we found the ‘recipe’ and where they had all the ingredients stashed. The thing that escaped me was that the recipe yielded 300 gallons of compost tea. I glossed over that and just bought the (relatively expensive) ingredients in the smallest quantities they had.
I got home and as I started to figure out, even these small quantities of ingredients will produce pretty large quantities of compost tea. So although I may have spent a lot on some of these ingredients, the others should last me a good long while and make a lot of compost tea. Way more than the 300 gallons specified on the recipe.
Here are the original recipes, for 300 gallons and 55 gallons.
Here’s my version of the recipe converted down to 10 gallons worth. Use the tablespoons and cups, based on whatever is easier for you to measure.
Here’s the ingredients I bought. I’m not even going to tell how much this cost. I missed one, the humus, but I figure there’s enough other ‘good’ stuff in there it won’t make that much of a difference. I’ll pick it up next time.
Here I tested out the bubbler to make sure it worked, and the compost brewing away with the first 6 ingredients.
After this bubbles away tonight, I’ll add the next few ingredients and give all the plants in the garden a good feeding tomorrow.
Stay tuned to see how it works. I’m really hoping it gives my Carolina Reapers a little boost of growth!
