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Morning Rosebud, YD, and all OFC.
YD sorry about your sister. Kraven, I hope everything goes right at the VA. 29 degrees here and wind is blowing hard from the west. Wake and Bake time. Just had my first bowl and I have my coffee.
 
Last year my baby brother who was an alcoholic took his own life !- I miss U brother !--Wish I would been there --maybe I could have done something to help !
 
Rosebud, my grow is doing well. Thank You for all of your help. Got to order more dirt. Ha, Rose can you use the same dirt over again?
 
Good morning nes, i am so happy to hear your grow is good. Yes, you can reuse your soil. you will need to add some more nutes to it like more worm castings, you need to start thinking about making a worm bin. You would like i think. I have 3 of them so i don't have to buy worm ****, although that is cheap. So you would need to add that and some epson salts for magnesium,... just a teaspoon to the dirt. Some more mychorazae and then supplement with teas... You might need to add calcium, I put all my used ffof in a big composter and then add my compost and other nutes and I use rice hulls for perlite.. they break down easy. If you want to read up on all this you can go here:http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=48 Please let me know if you need anything.
 
I'm growing 3 Aurora Indica, wishing for all female. Water, 3oz yesterday. They are 4 1/2, 4 3/4, and 5" in solo cups at 3 weeks. I wonder if they are growing to slow.:watchplant:
 
Hey YD, thanks, i just did my pt homework and your words helped.

Nes, are you watering until water comes out of the bottom? then letting them dry completely?
 
Rose what do you mean by supplement with tea and what kind of tea? I happy to hear that you are going to therapy. (I do hope therapy is the right word). Sorry, if it is not.
 
It is the right word. I don't like it and having to buck up and take it like a woman.
Worm tea or there are lots of recipes in the link i posted.
 
Hey YD, thanks, i just did my pt homework and your words helped.

Nes, are you watering until water comes out of the bottom? then letting them dry completely?

No, Rose, I read some ware that your only give 3 oz to start in solo cups then I give 4 oz then I let dry out and take it from there. They seem to be alright. Does that mean my roots will not grow down?
 
Rose how is your weather today? 29 degrees at 10 am here. Still have not got clean well water here. tj is working on it. Have to carry water in. Today, I have high hopes for a clean water.
 
nes, if you don't want to go read in the organic's section, i will bring it to you... here you go... you are doing great, i hope you get clean water asap.
Compost Tea Time
taken from Maximum Yeild


INTRODUCTION
You’ve seen the ads, you’ve read the hype, but what exactly is compost tea? Is it the next best thing in growing technology or just another passing fad? More important, how do you make it and what can it do for you? Although it is increasingly accepted by the organic growing community, there are still questions as to the benefits of using compost tea in hydroponic systems.
“Teas” made by soaking manure, compost,
or worm castings in water have been around for hundreds of years. The resulting
nutrient-rich mixture is, in fact, not compost tea but more accurately compost extract or leachate. Products on the retail shelves called “plant teas” are very similar. While these products can be beneficial, modern aerated compost tea is a more recent discovery, with potential to change your whole idea about cultivation.

WHAT IS COMPOST TEA?
Aerated compost tea looks like a murky brown liquid (sometimes foamy on top) that has a rich, earthy, somewhat
sweet smell. This liquid is alive, teeming with trillions of micro-organisms,
with a rich diversity of thousands of kinds of bacteria and fungi. The secret to all this life is the brewing process: air is forced through a mixture of high-quality compost and complex microbial foods suspended in water. The oxygen and nutrients produce an extraordinary explosive growth of bacteria
and fungi.
Consider that a teaspoon of good compost
contains a billion or more bacteria. Given the right environment, those bacteria
can double in population every 20 minutes. In the normal brewing period of 12–48 hours, those microbes turn into countless numbers of beneficial organisms.
Added to soil or a hydroponic solution, the microbes quickly go to work, converting everything around them into food for plants.

COMPOST TEA INGREDIENTS
Compost Starter
The quality of compost tea depends on its basic ingredient — the compost or source of microbial life. Like the “starter” used in yogurt, everything depends on the micro-organisms
it contains. The USDA has warned compost tea makers of the possibility of contamination
by Salmonella and E-coli found in some commercial manures and composts. It is essential to use only the highest-quality
organic non-manure, unpasteurized compost to make tea. Experienced growers build their own compost piles that heat up from biological activity. The resulting dark brown substance is a nursery for beneficial organisms and is good for compost tea.
Most compost tea makers reach for vermicompost
or worm castings. These are easily available and have high levels of bacteria. Obtain them from a reputable organic supplier,
because their effectiveness depends on the species of worm and the kind of food they have been fed. One drawback is that worm castings may not have the necessary diversity of fungal spores.

COMPOST TEA TIME FOR GROWERS
Gaining popularity with compost tea makers is a fine-grained humus that comes from Alaska. This is marketed under a number of different names: Alaska Humisoil, Alaska Humus, or Alaskan Magic. Extensively tested by independent laboratories, this humus has been found to harbor an extraordinary diversity of both bacteria and fungi, and it is naturally free of pollutants and pathogens.
Aerated Water
To make tea, the starter compost is added to pure, aerated water. High levels of chlorine in the water may kill off the microbes, so it is important
to aerate the water for a couple of hours to allow chlorine to off-gas. The dissolved oxygen level must be kept high to nourish the aerobic microbes. Many efficient aeration or brewing systems are now available. You can make your own using an air pump and a bubbling system. A double-outlet aquarium pump with a bubbler, to produce tiny micro-bubbles and gently agitate the tea, is sufficient air to brew a 5-gal. bucket.
Brewing the tea is as much an art as a science; treat the tea like a living organism. Insufficiently aerated compost tea may go anaerobic, which is poisonous to plant roots. This is easy to determine
because the tea gives off a sour smell. Leave the tea for
more than six hours without aeration and it dies from lack of food and air.
Microbial Foods
Microbes are hungry. Like every living thing, they need to be fed. The art of compost tea brewing is knowing how much and what nutrients to add to make the kind of tea you need. Bacteria feed on simple sugars, easily available in the form of non-sulfured molasses. Nutrients such as fish protein support both bacteria and fungi. Kelp, humic acid, and fibrous materials such as oat bran are good fungal foods. Brewing at shorter, higher temperatures of 75ºF–85ºF, tends to produce a quick bloom of bacteria. Brewing longer at lower temperatures of 60ºF–75ºF gives the fungi a chance to flourish.
Why the concern for bacteria and fungi? Fast-growing leafy plants prefer a more bacterially dominated environment for their roots, while woody-stemmed plants like it more fungal. If you want to grow greens or annuals, then brew for bacteria. If tomatoes, shrubs, or trees are what you are looking for, go more fungal. In general, a balanced bacterial/fungal tea will produce great results across the board. If you are unsure whether your tea has the optimum diversity of microbes, send it to a reputable lab for testing (see www.soilfoodweb.com).

WHY USE COMPOST TEA?
Making compost tea may sound a bit complicated, but the results can be extraordinary and the ideas behind it make intuitive sense. Plants and soil life have grown up together, co-evolved over millions
of years. The countless organisms in healthy soil — bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, earthworms, and plant roots — form a living ecology called the “soil food web.” Prey and predator, catalyst and symbiote are interlocking parts of the great web of life.
The underpinnings of this ecology are the microbes and their relationship with roots. Many microbes are drawn to plant roots, which feed them tiny drops of sap. In exchange these criters break down minerals into easily digestible forms and fix nitrogen from the air. Not only are microbes food for other important members of the soil-food web, but their dead bodies are super plant nutrition.
Plants prefer their food biologically pre-digested, just as we prefer our food cooked. On this diet they naturally grow stronger and healthier.

COMPOST TEA AND SOIL
Organic growers have been using aerated compost teas for about 20 years. The positive stories are many and the scientific evidence is growing steadily. Research results, while somewhat confusing, suggest
that aerated compost tea enhances soil fertility, growing bigger, stronger plants with larger yields. Just as important, foliar spraying with tea can help control a number of plant diseases (see “The Secrets of Foliar Spraying,” Maximum Yield, July/August 2007).

Tomato plants treated with compost tea are stronger and resist blight better; turf roots grow more vigorously; grape, banana, and avocado have higher production
and less disease; seedlings show less damping off; le��uce and greens produce faster growth. An important two-year research program by the Rodale Institute and Penn State University conclusively showed that aerated compost tea reduced powdery mildew on grapes by 50 percent and increased potato yields by 19 percent. Those potatoes had an extremely high mineral content.
More anecdotally, committed tea users say that the microbes in compost tea help break up impacted soils, clean up toxic chemicals, and greatly cut down on the need for added fertilizers. Some results are remarkable: John Evans, winner of numerous Guinness World Records for giant vegetables, used only compost tea to grow his 19-lb. carrot and 75-lb. Swiss chard.
 
You should get as excited about church as you do about the superbowl. So when your pastor makes a point this Sunday, pour Gatorade over his head.
 
Rose I feel for U about that arm thing !--It can get frustrating when the arm won't do what U say !


If God isn't real --Why do meteors always land in craters? --Check mate atheist!
 
Sorry bout your sister YD. I have a brother that i have a hard time maintaining a relationship with because of his closed-minded ideas. I tell myself that we all have a right to make our own decisions, but I will not condone his ideas & have made it known to him how I feel. I believe that's all you can do. If you don't try to encourage a change in bad behavior, then you would have a reason to feel bad. As they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.
 
Hey if that crossed the line about no religion talk ---Then I'm gonna have to just take the punishment! !---Cause that's funny no matter who U are !
 
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