I started using compost tea this year and I think it has really made things perk up well. I mostly use it to just spray on the leaves - but a few occasions I have watered the soil with it as well. I have a big 32 gallon trash container that I fill with completed compost tea - then I have a fish aquarium powerhead at the bottom with a air pump attached to it. That way the powerhead keeps the tea moving while pumping oxygen into it. A 55-gallon container I have is filled with dead leaves and other compost materials. I'll first fill this up and let it sit a few weeks, then drain it and put it into the 32 gallon trash container - that is what I mean by putting completed compost tea in the 32-gallon trash container. Here is a link that might be useful: BsnTech Gardening Blog

Glad to hear alfalfa tea is eternal. I've had a covered container for about a month and was wondering. I opened it Sunday while preparing Bubble Bath's site. Man, I take everything back about that nice "green" smell. Whew! I left it uncovered the whole time I was working and suffered. (Once I start digging I can't stop for anything.) I kept thinking again and again "What is that gross smell? Oh,..." When I got cleaned up & ready to go in, I decided to cover it back. I was sure someone would call the police, reporting a dead body. Bad stuff. But when I mixed it up, it WAS green. Bill, I hope your wife apologized to your son and you apologized to your wife. LOL. Too funny. Sherry

Thanks Joe, I understand what you mean now. And yes I do have a habit of creating long posts (with a lot of paragraphs). I never start out with that intention, but it just usually seems to work out that way somehow. I was just thinking in terms of it all being in one long paragraph when I made the statement. I guess that's why I didn't understand what you meant. jmoore3274 Again I have not really gotten into using beneficial's yet myself, but having live beneficial microbes and fungi in the reservoir shouldn't be a problem. However keeping a abundance of them thought the life of the plants is the issue (the way I see it anyway). I would be concerned with adding sugars to any systems. Besides the fact that it would make everything sticky and clog things up. As far as I know, adding sugars will also feed the bad microbes and fungi along with the good. So I think that would do much more damage than good (a wash at best), even if there are no other side effects. Also, I have never come across anything (I remember anyway) that would suggest that any chemical salts used to make nutrients have any negative effects on the beneficial's. However too much or too little of anything can be a problem, even just to the plants themselves (with or without benificals). Thanks for the links, and here are a few that I have collected. Although they are all from the same publication, they are from various authors (and dates). I have looked most of the authors up, and I'm pretty satisfied that the articles are creditable and not just propaganda put out by product manufactures. Ask Erik (Although this is mostly about using organics, it discuses using microbes in a DWC system.) Beneficial Soil Microbes Beneficial Biology Demistified Buying and Applying Mycorrhizal Fungi Biological Products in Indoor Gardens Application Parameters for Using Compost Tea Understanding and Using Trichoderma Fungi (and if you go to the online extras section look under the May 2010 edition for the same title as this article, you can click Download a detailed "shopping list" of tips for Trichoderma fungi. That explains the differences between high and low quality Trichoderma fungi products. Same goes for other benifical's. Anyhow, hope they can help answers some of your questions. I haven't read them all, all the way through myself yet. But I have copied them all to text documents (including the author and URL of the online article) to make it easy to print out and read when I have time (like I do with most good articles).

Just finished round 2 of Chemo. It was less harder hitting than round 1 in general,so far. Things seem to be easier on me than I expected - so far. 1/3rd done ,4 more chemo's to go. Lost about 80 lbs. ,I was about 100 lbs.overweight... A salt and fat free diet sucks! Better than the alternatives I guess... Thanks for the good thoughts and prayers. It means a lot. Garden died so I'm sprouting new stuff,good thing we don't have a winter here. Mostly going to be Manzanos and a few wilds and Annuums I think. Did anyone figure out if the Mag. in Dolomite lime dissolves in the vinegar to make something the plant can still use or? Does it combine with the Ca. to make a compound of some sort or do the Ca. and Mag. disolve to make 2 separate things? It might make a difference since the same receptors in plants can take up either Ca. or Mag. So if they make a compound in whatever ratio of Ca. to Mag. it would be interesting if said ratio matched the average ratio plants use. No more hassle with possible Ca. or Mag. lock out due to overdosing a plant with either or... A possible reason to use Dolomite Lime rather than pure Ca. This post was edited by smokemaster_2007 on Sun, Aug 10, 14 at 13:37