Compost Tea/Beneficial Nematodes

Was considering the idea of adding beneficial nematoes to the compost tea mix. Good idea/bad idea? If so, when to ad: during the mix or just before applying the tea???

hey hey morgan!!
got snow today here..:( sigh..
i havent added anything except aquarium water,molasses,and castings to my aerated tea..
i do put on shrimp shells every 3 or 4 yrs on my lawns.. the cutin from the shells helps get rid of grubs in the lawn..
seems to do the trick for me.
im sure others here have alot more to say on beneficial nematoes in teas...
:) dave

Don't add 'em until just before you apply the tea. Otherwise they'll drown.

PuddlePirate...that's what I was thinking too. I believe you can put them in a solution and apply them with a sprayer but figured why not just add to the tea when apply it.

Well Dave I see another aquarium water user. I have only seen one objection to using aquarium water in these forums and that was by Dr. C. who objected on 'general principles', which I don't understand, but never thought to ask her why. I use gravel syphoned aquarium water for all my plants and mixing food in a blender for the worm bins. No problem that I can see. So if you don't mind my asking what kind of fish do you keep in your aquariums. I collect natives and have set up two tanks now for granddaughters. Can't wait to take them collecting with me. They are five and six so it may be a while, but at least I have taken them fishing. Never too young to get a kid hooked on fishing.

hey morgan.. brrrr.its freakin cold here in provo.. should warm up a bit near weekend..but was close to 0 this morning..
ive used my tank water on my plants for yrs now.. i havent tested the N content..there is some..but as u know.. fish and
nitrates dont mix..so...
i dont have any fish right now..but i was in the "fishy" business.. sort of..LOL yrs ago i got a 75 gal tank..major fixed it up..
live plants,soils/gravel.. freshwater.. i think i had 8 angelfish plus all the others.. to find..couple of the angels decided to spawn...
long story short..i ended up with over 30 tanks..all sizes..and selling freshwater angelfish to all the local pet stores..
im glad i did it..but ended up being more work than i wanted to put in at this stage of my life.. i couldnt get away..
i think im going to get my tomato planting area set up put together next week...
? how early do u start your tomato seeds?
i dont plant tomatoes in the garden till 1st week of june.. its alittle later than most..but i havent had trouble with
a late frost and having to start over..
i do harden them off for several weeks.. i put up small greenhouses (10'X6') in may.. then into the ground ...
they are always big plants.. most have tomatoes on the vine by time they go into the garden..
this is 1st yr im going to start my own seeds.. tired of not getting the plants i want from local nursery..there always mislabeled..
sigh...

Well Dave it seems line ole winter is giving everyone fits. My daughter in Colorado Springs called last night in tears when she came home to a flooded basement. Her pipes froze on the third and second level and ruined the walls as well. Sounds like some serious damage. My wife is in Texas and they are seeing the affects from the same storm. Schools are shut down and grannynanny is going nuts with her two granddaughters who have cage fever. Of course they all blame her for bringing the ice storm from Montana. They had 80 digress the first day she got there and was going on about how nice it was. I may go fishing today (heat wave...it's above freezing today!)...then I can rub it in.

I knew a lady in Wichita who raised angel fish in bath tubs. She must have had fifty tubs at least in her shop. She had an uncanny ability to sex the fish and pair them off. Her fish were sold in every shop in town.

Eight to ten weeks out is the recommend date for starting tomato seeds. They come up rather quickly in vermicompost and by the end of eight weeks many have blossoms. Dr. C has posted that plants from eight to ten inches are about the best size because of growth vigor as I understand it. However, there was an Alaskan Uber who once told me to pot up my larger plants and not to worry about putting them out at four feet tall which had happened one year. He suggested that the larger the root ball the better for the bigger plants and they seemed to do just fine. If you plan to leave them in their individual pots they might get root bound by the end of ten weeks. I grow mine in peat pots and I just carefully remove the pot when planting out and gently brake up the media before planting as much of the stem as I can. If weather doesn’t seem favorable I may take the larger plants and pot them up one more time as suggested above.

I heat my hoop house with an electric chicken house heater in April and go from there with my stupice toms to the sunken raised bed with window pane covers for a few days before transferring to the wrapped cages in mid-May, I may loose some if there is a really hard freeze, but I have replacements ready. I plant the replacement seeds about two weeks later and generally end up giving most of these away. The cherry toms are not planted out until after June 15th so I don't bother starting them as early as the caged stupice toms.

morgan

hey morgan..sorry to hear of your family's misfortune with this wacko weather..
its still chilly here..but not the real cold we had last weekend..
yea.. the angels were an experience.. but i was so tied to taking care of them.. i had 1000's of angels at one time...
with angels you have to have very clean water..to prevent disease,health problems.. which my angels were extremely
healthy...
the pet stores had great sucess at keeping my angels.. ones they got from commercial growers as many as 1/2 died from
water pH shock,poor water,etc....
so now..i have some 30 gal still.. so im going to use them to start my tomato seeds..:) lol... im also trying my hand at
starting banana seeds.. alot more time to see if the seed does germinate.. but..hey if it works..i'll end up with some
banana plants i would have great difficulty to find otherwise... :)
im looking foward to the tomatoes off the plants im going to raise.. should be good stuff... :)
you take care..hope ya get some fishin time in!!!!!!

Had a pleasant day Friday and caught a 21" rainbow. Supper for four nights! The banks of the river were lined with fishermen when I got there about 1 pm. luckily; I got my favorite spot when two of the fishermen moved upstream. Took about ten casts to catch, and twice as long to land. My style of fishing gets a lot of attention from other anglers still after ten years. That's why I hate fishing in a crowd, but I didn't have much choice. Figured a dozen or so guys watching me wasn't too bad considering we were all suffering from cage fever. First fish of the year and I muffed the picture I was planning on sending you. Weather has again taken a turn for the worst and won't know when I will get another shot at it.

School was out all last week in Texas. Wife said one of the airports had been shut down for a couple of days affecting super bowl traffic. Icing continues to be a real problem in Colorado as well. Daughter was not so overwhelmed after she got hold of a real contractor and had him come investigate the damage from the frozen pipe. The idiots who call themselves plumbers and charged her $165hr to thaw out the pipe did not catch the broken pipe. They charged her over $300 just to hook up their pipe thawing machine and bragged about how much work they had lined up.

I can identify with you on the fish raising experience. I have operated dozens of tanks at one time and put in considerable effort to maintain them. Now I have three tanks and the easiest to care for is the largest. I use the German technology on filters and buy the best I can find. There is nothing equal to their technology anywhere in my opinion except for the Amish. I wish this country had taken a lesson from these people. Too late know.

I guess I mentioned my sister wanting a lemon tree. She lives in Florida but I advised her on getting a potted one. Due to the recent freezing there it would probably kill the plant if she planted it outside. Found some interesting information on the net about raising potted lemon plants which I have incorporated into my potting up process. I thought the watering/fertilizer method was interesting and have decided to use that method for all house plants and potted up plants. Let me know how the banana project goes Dave. Sounds like fun to me.