"If it's microbes you want, add fertilizer and compost. The resukts of a study indicated that compost contained more microbes than compost tea, and that fertilizer increased the microbe level more than compost tea. Here is a link that might be useful: Compost tea soil microbes" You used a blog as a peer reviewed reference? Where's the rigourous data collection in that? Gardenweb is rife with misinformation regarding compost tea, from brewing times, ingredients, to purpose and use. And now, apparently petrochemical fertilizers are promoting soil microbe diversity..... microbeorganics.com Tim does sell products through that website, but I don't think anyone buys them hehe and it's more of a resource than anything. I enjoyed reading the site, he participates on many organic forums and instead of throwing the onus on other people to prove him wrong, performs research from independent sources. I think he even owns a microscope, a great tool for rigourous data collection and methodology. Compost tea is best used to promote rapid soil recovery, to innoculate potting soil or raised beds, and to develope a healthy microbe-sphere, for want of an actual term, on plant surfaces when used as a foliar. It isn't a nutrient regime, it's one tool in a box.

everything except the worms :) Bill

I'm hoping to get some benefit out of using VC tea myself. I've been spraying it directly on my garden. My problem is I will not know how effective it is because I'm doing the whole garden rather than just part of it to compare. But I will look for insect damage to see if I see little or alot. I have a hardy hibiscus that for some reason attracts a little fly. The larvae turn the leaves into lace. One year I bought some chewing tobacco and brewed some nicotine poison. It did not seem to help as much as I thought Partially because I hated using the stuff and quit too soon. I hope to see VC tea work this year.

For what it's worth from a vermiculture novice, but with some scientific and life experience, I'm 100% behind the concept of "Do what works for you" with regard to liquefied worm poop. I would add several examples where "science" and "technology" have been added to some human endeavor that has been around AND functioning just fine without the science and technology for a LONG TIME. Unfortunately, too many of my personal examples are currently not politically correct, and people would simply get distracted from THE POINT. What's THE POINT, you ask? THE POINT is this: Science, and applied science (AKA "technology") are PROCESSES. As such the RESULTS from the PROCESS can be INTERPRETED in MANY ways. Unfortunately, today, people have been INDOCTRINATED to "believe" that IF the scientific PROCESS has been applied to a particular subject, THEN the results - REGARDLESS OF WHAT THEY ARE - can be INTERPRETED to MEAN SOMETHING. THAT IS FALSE. A great deal of the results of "scientific research", while "statistically significant at the 95% level", are COMPLETELY irrelevant to practical, 'real life', application. Let me see if I can abstract this a bit from worm poop. In Great Britain, they have extraordinary complex laws about how livestock can be killed. At the moment, (it changes frequently based on "new" "science"), there is a "gun" that delivers a steel rod through the animal's forehead to the brain. The force applied to the rod; the diameter of the rod, and the length of the rod, are all specified in excruciating "scientific" detail. However, the view of 'the forest' that is lost in the trees is that "dead", is "dead". There are no "degrees" of deadness. If you are dead, you are ALL dead. You cannot be like the "Farm Boy" in The Princess Bride, "mostly dead". Now, comes the "science" and "scientific logic". If a steel rod of "x" dimensions, driven at a velocity of "y" can kill an 350kg steer, then a steel rod of "2x" dimensions driven at a velocity of "2y" will be "better". Who can argue with that? Makes "perfect" sense, right? WRONG! DEAD IS DEAD. You can't be MORE dead because I hit you harder. So what's this got to do with "aerating" vermicompost, you ask? Simply this: While some "scientific" process can produce some "scientific" results that get 'sanctified' by "peer review" (ptooey, that term leaves a VERY bad taste in my mouth), the APPLICATION of the INTERPRETATION of those results to REAL LIFE may be COMPLETELY irrelevant or even ABSURD. Until there is IRREFUTABLE evidence from ACTUAL APPLICATION - NOT "scientific" "proof" - I think one should use, and continue to use methods that they BELIEVE are "best". More importantly, they should NOT ARGUE ABOUT IT! THAT is patently ABSURD, and here's why: LIFE is not an "engineering" project. LIFE is complex. LIFE is "variable". Furthermore, it is not only "possible" it is a CERTAINTY that what "I" do in some application will be FAR more complex than I am WILLING to keep track of. Therefore, what "you" do will CERTAINLY be "different" in ways that "I" am not interested in "tracing down". Aerate the hell out of 'your' compost tea. DON'T touch your compost tea. Add a POUND of molasses to your tea. Don't have a jar of molasses within 500 feet of your "tea" brewery. Real Life is showing CLEARLY, that DIFFERENT PEOPLE WILL GET DIFFERENT RESULTS. I'm damn tired of trying to "fine tune" LIFE based on ABSURD and slavish DEVOTION to "the Best" ANYTHING, especially if "the Best" is determined by some "scientific" process instead of REAL LIFE. I return to: "What are you going to believe? My peer reviewed, "scientific" EVIDENCE, or your lying eyes?" Paul