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Pls help with first time and Experimental Compost Tea.?
I'm a first time compost tea'er. So I went to the beach and grabbed a trash bag full of seaweed, kelp and sea grasses. I took it home and rinsed the sand and excess salt off of it. I separated it into three 5 gallon buckets filled them with water and let it sit in the sun for a week. The liquid is a medium amber color which is what I expected. Since reading online I found some things to add to the mixture to improve its qualities. in the last couple of days I added 1/8 cup of brown sugar, air bubblers, 3 tsp of fertilizer for acid loving plants, 2 cups of pureed mixed fruit cuttings (mango cuttings/skin, grapefruit skin, bag of defrosted strawberries, 2 miniature bananas and 1 tomato.) In just one of the buckets I experimented with something extra and added 1 cup of gypsum. The reason why is because it contains 20% sulfur and I'd like to make an acidic compost tea full of microbes that are ready to activate and change my alkaline soil quickly.
Question: Will it work, If it works what can I expect to see from the acidic tea? How long will it take for the microbes to convert the sulfur in to sulfuric acid, if at all etc?
10 points to the experienced compost tea'er that can help me with these questions.
2 Answers
- 7 years ago
Kool thanks Bill. I'm not sure if all of the salts were completely gone, but I did a thorough washing of all material. Is there any way to tell if its all gone? I guess I could dump the solution and restart with fresh water.
The gypsum has 20% sulfur in it. Just wondering if thats enough to get the microbes started to produce sulfuric acid? I'm going to look into the ammonium sulfate and iron sulfate products. Thanks for the lead on those!
- BillLv 77 years ago
Hmmm. Are you sure you got rid of the "excess salt." Even a trace amount of salt could be problematic.
As for the other items that you added .... sugar and mixed fruit .... I expect the mix to try to ferment and produce alcohol which, of course, is toxic to plants.
Gypsum will not alter the pH. That's why it is often used to provide calcium without doing anything to the pH.
If you want to acidify your soil, use horticultural sulfur. It may take a while since you have to overcome the natural buffering capacity of your soil. Alternatively, you can use ammonium sulfate or iron sulfate. I would stay away from aluminum sulfate. As always, read the labels and plan on having the soil tested periodically to see how close you are to your pH goal.
