If I mixed Bone meal, coffee grounds, compost, Epsom Salt in boiling water, is it a complete tea?

If I mixed Bone meal, coffee grounds, compost, Epsom Salt in boiling water, is it a complete tea and how long do I boil it? how much of each to how much water? I want to use this on my roses, tomatoes, hollyhocks, and other veggies.

If I mixed Bone meal, coffee grounds, compost, Epsom Salt in boiling water, is it a complete tea?
HI Wendy Compost tea does not need to be boiled. A simple way is to add a handful of your compost ingredients that you have listed and place in the end of a panty hose. Tie a knot in it and place it in a 5 gallon bucket of warm water. Let it steep over night and then water your plants.


Hope this has helped happy gardening Pattie
Reply:Yes for your plants Wendy, but go lightly on the salt, salt kills plants.
Reply:epsom salt helps correct magnesium deficiencies in soils, crops and houseplants.


compost tea really is just only compost that has 'steeped' in warm water for awhile and used right after, don't wait too long to use it. no boiling needed!





read this short article on coffee grounds and gardening:


http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/groundsfo...





i've heard bone meal provides phosphorous





wouldn't mix all that stuff... separately though in appropriate spots.


for best results, find out what nutrients are lacking in your soil and then you can decide what is the best method for your garden. also consider the plants and their specific needs.
Reply:The only necessary ingredients to make a good bacterial and soluble nutrients tea are: aerobic compost and sugar products. Everything else is optional. Your teas can be as creative as you are.


Put a shovel full of good compost in a 5 gallon bucket of water, wait one week, and apply to garden or lawn either full strength or up to a 1:4 water ratio. This is an excellent source of ready available soluble nutrients. NOTE: If you stir your brew daily or every other day, it helps get more oxygen to the mix for better decomposition and better aerobic microbial population growth. Un-aerated teas can continue to keep alive some aerobic or aerobic/anaerobic microbes, for up to 10 days in a watery solution. After 10 days, the whole un-aerated tea will contain only anerobic microbes.


Options to the basic recipe;


Add to the recipe a few cups of alfalfa pellets or some other cattle feed. Now you have extra nitrogen and trace elements from the bacterial foods.





Add the air pump bubbler, cheap aquarium air pump. This grows more aerobic microbes to add to your soluble nutrients in the tea. Contain the ingredients in an old nylon to keep it out of the pump.





Add a few T of molasses or other simple sugar products. Now you really maximize the aerobic microbes in the tea, which in turn produce even more extra soluble nutrients from the bacterial foods. Sugar products are mostly carbon which is what the microherd eat quickly so more can be added after three days.





Add 1-2 cans of mackerel, sardines, or other canned fish. Supplied extra NPK, fish oil for beneficial fungi, calcium from fish bones. Most commercial fish emulsions contain no fish oils and little to no aerobic bacteria. Fresh fish parts can be used, but because of offensive odors, it should composted separately with browns like sawdust first before adding to the tea brew.





Add rotten fruit for extra fungal foods. Add green weeds to supply extra bacterial foods to the tea. Add comfrey or nettles.


Comfrey is called knitbone or healing herb. It is high in calcium, potassium and phosphorus, and also rich in vitamins A and C. The nutrients present in comfrey actually assist in the healing process since it contains allantoin.


Nettles are helpful to stimulate fermentation in compost or manure piles and this helps to break down other organic materials in your planting soil. The plant is said to contail carbonic acid and ammonia which may be the fermentation factor. Nettles are rich in iron and have as much protein as cottonseed meal.





Use rainwater or de-chlorinated tap water. You can make good "rain water" from tap water by adding a little Tang (citrus acid) to the water mix before brewing. Urine water is also an excellent organic nitrogen source for teas (up to 45% N).





Add 1-2 tblsp of apple cider vinegar to add about 30 extra trace minerals and to add the little acidicity that is present in commercial fish emulsions. Many fish emulsions contain up to 5% sulfuric acid to help it preserve on the shelf and add needed sulfur to the soil.


You can add extra magnesium and sulfur by adding 1-2 T of Epsom salt to the tea.





Apply this tea full strength to get full nutrient levels per plant, or dilute it from a 1:1 down to a 1:5 water ratio to spread the beneficial microbes over a 1-acre garden area (mix 5 gallons of tea per 25 gallons of rainwater).