Brewing Compost Tea & Adding alcohol to plants

[wordwiz]

A prelude: I love this stuff, as I have seen the difference it can make to growing plants. A cup per plant makes a big difference,

Currently, I have three compost "piles" set up. They are mostly 5- or 4-gallon buckets with holes in the bottom. I continuously add material to them. Now I have taken to adding a quart or two of water to them each day or two, depending on how fast they drain. I figure I need to accumulate 12 gallons during the next few months for my raised bed project and another 55 gallons for my garden.

On another front, a few months ago I made a CO2 generator. It finished at least eight weeks ago and I had a bucket of basically alcohol left. It was in a grow area where some basil plants are growing under lights. One of them, that grew up under a 400-watt HPS lamp pretty much died. I cut all the usable leaves off it and just let it sit. Of course, it pretty much died. But two nights ago, on a whim, I added a cup of the alcohol to it. The next day, several new leaves made the scene.

I did read a couple of research papers that said spraying plants with a solution of yeast, sugar and water 30 and 45 days after transplanting increased production by up to 17 percent, so this seems to be another path to check out.

Mike

 

[hector.jacob]

try one of these days "blackstrap Molasses" for your plants, especially when the show a sign of deficiency or just to avoid any...5cc of molasses by liter of water...foliar and drench....it's like a power up, i use it for my plants in drench...like twice a month or sometimes once a month..., but got to be carefull with the ants and mealybugs...they are attracted by it..., so, sometimes i mixed it with a insecticide...

give it a try...you won't regret it...

 

[patrick]

Wordwiz, try adding a cup of soda to the bucket instead of the water every now and then. Not diet soda either. The sugar will feed the beneficial bacteria in the compost and cause it to process quicker. That's what is basically happening with adding the molasses, feeding the bacteria.

 

[wordwiz]

I'm cautious about using molasses. Earlier this year, I was doing some research and found a couple of citations that said when compost made with molasses is applied to tomato plants, there is a possibly of e. coli forming. IIRC, it's not common but not an impossibility and usually happened when applied as a foliar spray. As I hope to sell ripe tomatoes I did not want to take a chance.

No doubt I have gone over the edge but I use a food processor to grind up and mix broccoli stems, tea leaves, corn husks, left-over (small amounts) veggies, bread, egg shells everything that goes into my bucket. I try to apply not more than a 1/2 of material at at time and cover it with some very loose dirt, then water. Same thing with leaves. If I have seedlings that I don't need or am pruning tomato plants, I cut the leaves into small pieces, add some brown tree leaves and dirt. Corn cobs, which take a long time to decompose, get sliced, diced and put in the food processor.

I have only a 2x6' area to put compost outside and cannot turn it (well I could if I really wanted to do a lot of work) and it seems to take at least a year for stuff to decompose - at the least. Any big things, such as whole egg shells or those corn cobs barely break down in 12 months. That's why I've taken to making much smaller pieces!

Mike