organic feeding question EWC tea

Hey all, I am trying my hand at organics this time around and let me say so far the results are great. but i want to make sure they stay great!!!

i ammended a soil comprised of..

FFOF organic potting soil
Pro-Miz soiless mix
organic perilite
happy frog organic fertilizer 3-4-3
garden lime (about a tsp per 2 gal, the pro mix is ammended with like already so didnt want to go overboard)
earthworm castings

i dont know ecact amounts of each, about equal amounts of pro mix and FFOF


I just brewed my first EWC tea!!!!!! anyways i started off with molasses and the EWC and let it brew about 48 hours, then added more molasses and some of the happy frog fertilizer (not alot maybe 3 tblsp for 5 gal of water/tea) and let it brew some more, all in all it brewed for 6 days maybe 7. i added molasses every day to keep food available for the tea (i read somewhere that if you dont feed daily the microbes will die)

last night my tea had a nice layer of froth on the top and my plants were all ready to be watered, i watered them all with the tea. great story huh!!! (sorry for all the details i just feel that leaving the small stuff out dosent help gettign a good answer.)

i shouldnt need to water my plants again for 2 weeks, 1 of them is in a 10 gal tote most of the others are in 3 gal pots, they are all fairly small still.

ok now for the question.

i should have gotten the microbes going in the soil with this last batch of tea (there were proablly some in it before just not fully populated) should i continue feeding with this method of tea making? or should i start feeding with something else. to be honest i would like to feed something that dosent have to be brewed so that when my plants need to be watered i can just mix up some food and feed them.

i have been thinking about purchasing a bottle of liquid kelp, will this be enough to get me through flower? i want a good bloom food that my microbes will break down into some really nice P-K for my plants when they begin to flower.

any help appreciated i figure the tea i would brew 2x during the life of the plants just to keep that microbe pop up.

how good is molasses? can i just water in a few tblsp/gal of molasses water and keep em going strong? i dont want to under do it but dont want to over do it either.

i feel as if this is a stupid question since i have gotten no replies

Why did you brew it for 6 to 7 days?

Almost everything I have read says 24 to 48 hours. Maybe if you only brewed it for 2 days it wouldnt seem like such a chore for you to use teas.
Maybe a top dressing of EWC and then water lettingt it leach into the soil? Just a thought....

Good luck with your grow

i started brewing it thinking i would use it within the 48 hours but my plants just didnt need to be watered so i just kept the molasses coming and let it continue to brew, once its setup its not a chore but it is a chore getting it out of the 5gal bucket and into a watering can and i work in the house and it dosent exaclty smell the best so spilling a little isnt good. i dont mind doing it and would do it every watering if i could brew it outside. maybe ill just rig up a spout on the bucket so its easier to work with. thanks for the repy

A suggestion on getting the tea out of the bucket....... I went and bought me a 5 gallon water jug from Wal-Mart, they are blue and used for camping. They have a removable cap that removes and the cap has a spigot on it so when you lay it on its side you can use the spigot valve to get water out.
I cut one side out of it and laid it on its side. The hole allows you to be able to add water and goodies to it and use the valve to fill up whatever you water with and no longer have to try and scoop water out of a 5 gallon bucket.

great suggestion man thanks. that will def make it a easier process

keep it simple and just use a measuring cup and take it out of the bucket and put it into a 1 gallon picture (99cents). Feed it to your plants right away. I do full strength only becuase i have 5 gallons of tea & 6 plants. no need to dilute it or spread it then. plants loved it! take a look at subcools recipe for super soil on hightimes.com...great stuff. your soil mix could use some other amendments like bone & blood meal, soft rock phosphate, some guanos, azomite for trace minerals, epson salt for calcium. just another suggestion...if you have decent aeration in your brewer, don't brew for more than 24/36 hours...yours was stinking probably becuase it was brewing too long. here's what a couple of weeks have done for me... 2 weeks ago...

now...

matthebrute said:

i feel as if this is a stupid question since i have gotten no replies

Click to expand...

valid...not stupid question. EWT can be refrigerated for 10 days. you'll lose some microbes, but the nutes they broke down are in there. if it smells sweet/musky its a go.

thanks for the tip on the soil ammendments dante, i know i definalty could have put more in to make a better soil but funding is low and untill i can make back some of my initial investment(400w light, 32x32 tent, fans, ducting, timers, various CFL's and tons of other shit lol) im gonna have to roll with what i got.

hopefully when my blue cheese is done i can "help out" my local cannabis economy. if you look at the last few pages of my journal you will see that it needs all the help it can get. 30$ a 1/8th for SHWAGGGA bleh

i will definatly plan better on brewing up the tea next time but i think im going to hit up a local dairy farm and get some manure to add to the tea as well. i heard with manure based teas you want them to brew longer? or is it just dependant on the size of the container yuu are brewing in, i.e a 55gal drum will take a week to brew but a 5 gal will only take 2 days.

thanks for everyones input, feel free to check out my journal and leave any comments. constructive critisizm is always welcome too

my plants are reactig quite well to the tea i just wasnt sure if a kelp solution would be a good every other watering thing and then the tea every other watering...see what im saying? or should i just water with tea every time and use the kelp and seweed extract right in the tea?

also the happy frog has alot of trace minerals in it i think and it is derived from feather meal, bone meal, fish meal, fish bone meal, alfalfa meal, sulfate of potash, magnesia, bloo meal, bat guanno, kelp meal and gypsum. so i do have some of that stuff in the soil already, im thinking i should have put more in but i used dam near 3/4 of a bag of this fertilizer in my soil mix wich was basicly a bag of ffof and a bag of pro mix bith the same size bags.

i also put garden lime in there which has cal/mag in it so the soil is not completly without ammendments

brewing time usually has to do with how much aeration your getting. With low aeration and colder temps, you will need to brewer longer. I use a aquarium heater to keep my tea at 75F. With my 8.5" round airstone i get enough aeration so i only brew for about 24/30 hours. I'm not familiar with manure but i guess it would take longer to break down. If you're tight on funds you can get a pound of Mexican guano (high N) or Jamaican/Indonesian guano (high P) for less than $15 and top dress in your container or just mix it with water for feeding.

Kelp is great to add to teas and so is humic acid. I use kelp with everything. My plan for feeding is tea, a guano solution and then water with some additives like humic acid and superthrive.

ill have to go to my local agway and see what they have. they are getting geared up for spring now so they are stocked up. im also a decent customer so if i ask them to order something for me im sure they will.

I would brew the seaweed with the other ingredients in the tea.

More food for the little guys.

I always try to steer indoor growers toward brewing smaller teas. 1-2 liters of microbial tea is much easier to aerate and is more than sufficient for any large indoor grow. The microbes reproduce best in an environment free of large amounts of fertilizer. 25ml/L EWC, 10ml/L molasses, 4ml/L kelp meal, 1.5ml/L fish hydrolysate for ~36 hours. That will brew a tea thick with microbial life to populate the soil and break down the insoluble parts of organic fertilizers. Good luck!