How can I make Aerated Compost Tea?

frostweed, keep in mind that organic fertilizers work slowly, by building good soil from the ground up. I would think it might be harder to see an improvement in container plantings, where a good soilless mix is often used to start these plants. Any one else care to comment on this, I'm only going by theory here.

Josephine--can you pass a bottle of that over here for my new "frostweed" plant? lol

I think PrarieGlZ5 is right, especially if conventional fertilizers were used before or if it was fresh potting soil that had a fertilizer "precharge". Nitrates and other fertilzer salts can kill off the microbes you want, so it may take a few tries to get them established.

The soil I used for the pots was 2 parts regular potting soil with no fertilizer added, 2 parts peat moss, an 1 part perlite, no additional fertilizer was added.
I tend to think that maybe the compost I used for the tea, may have been very low in nitrogen, that compost was made from just one single plant, a live oak tree that was shredded and let to compost for two years.
Perhaps a compost made from many different plant materials would work better, since more nutrients would be present.
I will have to try making the tea from a different compost and see if there is a difference. Any opinions?

The compost you had may have been a bit old. It helps to have "hot", fresh, active compost, no matter what the parent material was, though a good compost pile has the right ratio of "green" and "brown" materials. It sounds like yours was all brown and wasn't cooking like an active pile would. I did the same thing and saw just a few rod shaped bacteria under the microscope, but then adding some fresh compost from a friend's active pile had it teaming with all kinds of stuff. It went from having just a little layer of foam on top to a ten inch head like a giant mug of rootbeer over night!

I do beleive you are right, it probably was the compost, although when we put the ground up tree in the bin it was green so it did heat up, it was a long time ago.
I will have to try again with a fresh active pile.
Josephine.

I wanted to share my first real experience with the areated compost tea we're talking about.

I had a hard time wrappimg my brain around what I saw when I was tilling on Tuesday. It just didn't make sense. When I first broke ground in January, I had trouble getting traction with my tiller because the soil was this sticky, yellow clay that clung to everything. After I tilled and raked, I sprayed aerated tea, threw on about 2 or three inches of leaves and basically left it alone. A couple of weeks ago I sprayed more tea (where did the leaves go?) and threw on some aged horse and cow manure last week. Tuesday, I went to till in the manure and I wish I could have seen the look on my face. The sticky, yellow clay was gone! This time I had trouble getting traction because the soil was too fluffy! Now, the clay that shows is dark reddish brown and the rest is brown or black crumbly stuff. If it can do that much good in 4 to 5 months, I can't wait to see what it does over time.

That is wonderful, but remember, the tea is not the only thing you used.
Beleive me, I am a firm beleiver in organic gardening, and I think it is the only way to garden that makes sense and is good for the environment, but don't give all the credit to the tea.
Josephine.

I know it's only a part of the puzzle, but it sure did speed things up. I wasn't expecting results like this for at least another year or two. I don't mean to go overboard, but so far I'm thrilled. I guess I've been living in the chemical gardening world for too long.

You have good reason to be thrilled and I congratulate you on you sucess.
Josephine.

Than you, and I'll try to pass on my new-found enthusiam. The great thing is that it DOES make sense.

Congrats, Agrinerd, on your new plot! Sure is nice to have a decent piece of earth to grow in, eh?

I'm quite sure that the tea helped make a difference...just think of all those busy bacteria that the tea added to the soil and then they went to work on those leaves and other goodies you buried (and fed to them). It can't be said enough, "Feed the soil" and that's exactly what you did.

Again, congrats! (Bet you're itchin' to plant now, eh!?)

Shoe.

You bet. My seedlings and seeds are going in this weekend... with another dose of compost tea.

Well Guys, here is my report on my second experience with aeriated compost tea.
We made this one from a fresh batch of compost using 12 cups, and putting it in the tulle bag that I made from the 25 inch square. We inserted one of the pump tubes in the bag and tied the top with a twist tie.
Here is my husband holding the bag.

The first day, no foam.

Second day, a little bit of foam.

Third day, some foam. It was a lot easier because we didn't have to strain the tea.
The bag rinsed out really well.
I didn't do any plant comparisons this time, but I do like the bag method much better.