Compost Tea experiment : Feeding with and without : the results

[vegmandan]

Well,I made a batch of Compost tea a fortnight ago, and apparently it has miraculous benefits once watered into the soil and makes things grow much better and with more vigour..
I decided to do a test by watering with the tea and without it on identical plants in pots and in the soil.
So here are the results of my unscientific test.
Needless to say I wasn't surprised.

[rana]

Hmmm! I'm not suprised but is 2 weeks long enough?

BTW Milk and two sugars please.................

[Snadger]

As you so rightly mention, compost is more of a soil structure enhancer. If you already have a good friable, compost enriched loam I would imagine the 'compost tea' would do very little for plant growth.
As far as I know, compost is very low in nitrogen and will give more of a slow release on poor soils.

Comfrey tea wouldn't give any short term early noticeable results either but I think would give long term better results in flowering and fruiting

If nettle tea, which is supposedly nitrogen rich were used, I suspect a difference would be seen to leaf growth (over a longer period than a fortnight though!)

I wouldn't rule organic feeds out completely yet!

[Two_Sheds]

Snadge, I fell into this trap before. This isn't simply compost tea made with compost, it's something more mysterious, to do with very expensive microbes
There was a thread on it (twas mentioned on Gardener's World) but my powers are fading and I can't find it

[Snadger]

Snadge, I fell into this trap before. This isn't simply compost tea made with compost, it's something more mysterious, to do with very expensive microbes
There was a thread on it (twas mentioned on Gardener's World) but my powers are fading and I can't find it

All too technical for a country bumpkin like me then!

My Dads leek trench was on a slope and had a pile of rusty nails and a compost heap at the top end. He reckoned it gave a drip feed of nutrients and iron............

[Two_Sheds]

My best peas this year are the ones planted directly beside my dalek: they're getting the run off I guess

[Maccabee]

The difference in your cucumbers might have had something to do with that massive courgette squashing and blocking the light of your "with tea" cuc

[Lotsaveg]

From what I understand, compost tea is a 'DIY' system for producing beneficial microbes, and a blooming expensive one. Someone compared it to making your own beer but costing £20 a pint!

I've been messing about with the packets of mycorrhizal fungi granules this year as I've heard and read so many interesting tales of improved growth and yields. My conclusion so far is that they really do work and I'll definitely be using them next year on everything. Even the treated roses are phenomenal this year

[taff]

so compost tea doesn't really work unless you have crap soil to test it on?
which brings me to my question...what's your soil like lotsaveg?

[Florence Fennel]

Thanks for making the effort Dan, very interesting.

[endymion]

Thanks for taking the time to do this experiment. Two weeks should have been long enough to make some sort of difference, even allowing for a rich soil to begin with.

I don't understand what all the fuss is about wrt compost tea. From what I understand it's compost, taken from the compost heap, mixed with water and some molasses (which I'd guess could be black treacle) and then air pumped for a few days.

Is it really going to be any better than using, say, the leachate from a wormery or the liquid that collects in the bottom of our little veg bin in the kitchen if we leave it too long?