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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 12:15 pm 
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Is it possible to over-do foilar feeding? I know that there is such as thing as too much water and too much fertilizer, and general guidelines dictate spraying compost tea every couple of weeks (or so; I'm not really sure), but is there actual harm in doing it more frequently?

I would think with foilar feeding any excess would run off and not do any harm, but I wanted to make sure. On advice from another thread, I've sprayed the past two mornings but am not confident I'm doing a thorough job (it's dark at 0500). Before doing a couple more treatments, I wanted to make sure I'm not doing more damage than good.

Thanks in advance for any guidance,
Chris


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PostPosted: Wed May 05, 2004 12:41 pm 
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Are you doing this simply for the fertilization of your plants or are you trying to resolve a problem? The only thing I can think of would be that maybe your plants might stay too wet if you do it too often.

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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 7:54 am 
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Yes and No. It depends. If you make a non-diluted, non-aerated, anaerobic tea that is over a month old, it can potentially burn your plant foliage and harm many beneficial aerobic microbes on the plant and in the top 6-12" of your topsoil. Any non-stirred or non-aerated tea over 10 days old will have 100% anaerobes in it. The top 6-12" of all good rich organic soil contains beneficial aerobic organisms for all gardening needs. Some badly made anaerobic teas can be used as natural herbicides, according to Dr. Elaine Ingham from soilfoodweb.com!

All aerobic tea recipes are 100% safe, healthy, and beneficial for all gardening needs. You can use them from a 1:1 to 1:5 dilution ratio, in diluted form every other day if you wanted to, as a foliar or soil drench, without killing any plants or beneficial organisms. The reason is because good aerobic teas are not really fertilizers, they are biostimulants, microbial factories. Molasses or other natural sugar/syrup products in these aerobic teas also guarantee a strong, intense, safe, colonization of aerobic microbes in the brew.

These aerobic microbes have the ability to digest, buffer, balance, and chelate nutrients from organic matter in your soil or in teas, around your plant's root zone or on its foliage, without overfeeding or overloading the plant's natural nutrient uptake system, nor hindering it's immune system.

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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 10:31 am 
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What exactly is the difference between anaerobic and aerobic? I am assuming it has to do with air?


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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 11:28 am 
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Hi Ho.

Sandi:

I'm using it for several reasons. First, the growth on my plants is somewhat less than expected, and several even appear to be dying. I have a compost pile smack dab in the middle of my garden, and all the plants with 1-2 feet of the pile are growing like gangbusters, but those farther out (up to 8 feet away) aren't consistently doing as well. Some are, but many are not.

Also, I am seeing some plants being munched on.

Captain:

Your response is interesting, and it now has me wondering... I am a lazy person, and rather than making compost tea, I bought a gallon of concentrate and made a batch per the directions. I asked if it was alive and ready to use and was assured the mix was an add-water and go type thing. Was I sold lakefront property on this?

Relative to when I mixed it, it was less than 2 days old... however, was it really? Does mixing it from concentrate get it all going, or is it considered as old as the concentrate is? I've wondered the same thing when I buy Garrett Juice from concentrate. Are the microbes alive and dormant?

Thanks for the feedback,
Chris


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PostPosted: Thu May 06, 2004 1:38 pm 
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Keep in mind than all liquid biostimulants like Garrett Juice, commercial fish emulsions and seaweed exrtracts, are all bottled liquids, totally anaerobic, and have no living, breathing aerobic microbes in it. The aerobic microbes will grow on the plants and in the soil, AFTER it is applied to your lawn or garden, from the aerobic microbes that exist in the air and in your rich organic soil.

Aerated teas are superior to good anaerobic teas, in the sense that the aerobioc microbes have already grown to a tremendous rate even before they get in the garden or lawn environment, so they work must faster. In less than 12-24 hours in most cases.

Also keep in mind that Dr. Ingham and other soil experts have proven that just 5 gallons of ACT, brewed aerobically in 1-3 days, has as many aerobic bacteria, fungi, and other beneficial aerobic microbes growing in it as aprrox. 10 tons or 40 cubic yards of good mature compost from the pile! No anaerobic tea can match that.

Gary Zimmer (author of "The Biological Farmer") states that the cell walll structure of every aerobic microbe that you breed in your garden, (whether on the plant's foliage or root zone), is equivalent to a plant as a 10-5-3 synthetic NPK fertilizer plus micronutrients.

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PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2004 10:18 am 
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Thanks for that great feedback. I'm sold on aerated tea and have even bought a little air thingy from the fish section of the pet store.

I made a batch, which reminded me promptly why I bought the stuff in the jug... what a mess.

So, this brings me to a final follow-on question. If I take the pre-made stuff in the jug and aerate it, will it re-activate the microbes or re-populate them from the air and have the same (or similar) effect as the home-made tea? If not, can I jump-start it with a little compost and rely on the nutrients from the store-bought mixture?

Many thanks.
Chris


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PostPosted: Mon May 10, 2004 11:58 am 
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You will always have a healthy starter supply of beneficial aerobic microbes from a new batch of mature compost, forest dirt, leaf mold, etc. So yes add what you like to your version of aerobic teas.

Any bottled up natural liquid fertilizer/biostimulant will have either no beneficial microbes in it, or either a few weak dormant fungal ones.

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The entire Kingdom of God can be totally explained as an Organic Garden (Mark 4:26)
William Cureton


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PostPosted: Wed May 12, 2004 8:00 am 
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For what it's worth, I am seeing a dramatic difference in all of my plants.

Maybe it's a combination of factors, but my plants have really come to life in the past week. The only thing I've done differently is:

- Sprayed in the early morning, before leaving for work
- Made the extra effort of spraying the underside of the leaves
- Made a batch of fresh, aerated compost tea and used that the last two days (sprayed four days of last week total)

Like I said, this is kind of antecdotal evidence, but other than laying down a bunch of mulch this weekend, I've done nothing. Not only that, but I put the mulch down because my plants finally looked big and healthy enough to do so.

Maybe this is nonesense, and a week is not long enough to expect results, but I'm pretty happy right now and plan to keep up the regimen...

By the way, I harvested my first fruit yesterday since going organic... two cherry tomatoes.

Thanks for all of the great feedback,
Chris


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