That's a great idea! The meal is fine for the roses, but then can't be re-used. You could just tie a fabric piece around the outlet to sieve it.

I love alfalfa tea, and no one told my roses about it being hocus pocus or placebo effect. I also had one start growing after threatening. I would also dance and howl under the full moon, if I thought it would help. :-p *edit to add, I don't know what I'm talking about, it's just the only thing that ever made me go "wow that really did something". In the same way when you get a lot of rain, and see a huge red cane shoot up overnight. It was noticeable, so I keep doing it. I like the meal, because I got pellets one time, and found out they might have salt in them. Never used those pellets. I only use about one box of meal a summer.

witchy: it works me great too. very reliable, if messy.

I use aa pellets. you can buy 100% aa pellets at about $15 for 40 or 50 pounds. The pellets without additives are cheaper. I have been needing 2 bags because I use it all over my garden.

Westes -- I use my rain barrel, but I don't hook up the hose. I laboriously dip my watering can into the barrell and walk back and forth back and forth back and forth. If you wear your steps tracker you can call it a workout! When I justhave sludge left at the bottom, I blast it up with the hose, and then use that, too. When I've used my alfalfa meal twice and it's just sludge left on the bottom, I scoot the barrel over to my fruit trees and dump the rest out there. I've only done this twice, but my roses are looking really good...And I've only let the mix sit for 24 hours! Next time I'll have to try the whole fermentation thing...

Regarding rubber/latex gloves ... wear them with overalls and rubber booties too! If you don't i guarantee you'll accidentally dump the entire contents on yourself at some point in time and wish you hadn't been wearing your favourite sneakers. :-((. Don't ask me how I know!!! LOL!!!

@Deborah so if I am going to follow that procedure, I might as well buy a 40-gallon plastic garbage bin for $20 rather than investing in a rain barrel at $100.

Vap or anyone: why dont I get notifications when there are posts on this thread? I would like to know whats happening on certain threads. I checked on my main page and could not not find anything that could set this problem right. Do you know how I could fix this??

@katyajini I have also noticed when my threads ago that I stop getting notifications. I do not see any way to change the behavior. Gardenweb is so loaded with bugs that it is difficult to see them fixing this.

Go into advanced settings and change it. Sometimes it just randomly erases notifications. It's also possible you hit a note at the end of a thread that takes you off that email list. I have done that accidentally

Thanks guys! I think I did the off email list thing. Is there any way to reverse that?

Since we talking about technicalities how do the green highlighted @ thing???

Did you check your settings under advanced settings.? Just type at with the name and it comes up. However not all of my laptops pads phones do this. So it may depend. I can't remember how I resigned up. I think I just went in to the settings again but I don't remember. Hopefully someone else knows.

@vaporvac the link at the bottom of each topic says "Click to switch off email notifications about new comments". That is email notifications. Selecting that link does not seem to stop real-notifications when you are logged in.

Like a lot of Gardenweb, this functionality is buggy. I have had that link occasionally stop all notifications, and sometimes it stops only email notifications. What a weird user interface that they give you no option to stop realtime notifications online.

Like a lot of Gardenweb, the functionality in Advanced Settings is not complete. They give you lots of options to configure email notifications, but no real control over real-time notifications when you are logged in.

@katyajini Type @ and then the user's name and you will get a real-time display of users matching the substring you type. Hit enter when you are over the right user name. The problem is that if the user has added zone information into the name, you end up having to display all of that. For example @Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley. For such cases, I just type the shortened version and do not link the profile @vaporvac

I will look through advanced settings again. Thanks for @Vaporvac Z6-OhioRiverValley!!! And Thanks @westes Zone 9b California SF Bay

Just note what I tried to write above. The at username does not work across all platforms so ymmv. Huestis sometimes who's completely on signs me randomly from things in advanced settings. It's really crazy. I haven't had that done for a while though.

I used Alfalfa meal this summer, and it works great on my roses!

new canes pop up after I applied AA and AA tea onto the ground within a week.

Westes - I have one official rain barrel & three gray trash cans that are only 40 gallons each, but they last longer than my rain barrels & are handy for other garden chores when rainy season ends for us (and stackable when not in use).

Vapor - oh what a Picture you paint!!

What has been your experience with just

incorporating alfalfa pellets into the drip line

just making tea for 2 -3 days

or

tea fermenting for a week to 10 days ?

I've never been a -tea- person myself..nor have I ever used it on any shrubs up until last year, when I incorporated into the dirt/drip line. I've been putting alfalfa pellets into the my lawncare programs as long as I can remember though...

I did not get that much effect with pellets worked into the soil in spring/summer. But I think there is good benefit in adding pellets to the soil in late fall. The benefits are seen next spring when the roses leaf out. I have had very special benefits from aa tea. I used 7 day ferment. However I think less or more time would still work well here. So many variables are at play constantly so just some fermentation is a good place to start.

How did you use aa in your lawn?

Just spread it out on lawn spring - around 20lbperK. Organice slow feeding nitrogen during summer on my cool season turf. Just water it in or plan to do it right before a rainfall. Otherwise Bob the Squirrel and Thumper might make off with the pellets.

note to self or note to fellow GW'ers....use gloves when handling tea . LOL, the smell doesn't exactly wash off ur hands. speaking from my experience, cough, mishap this morning

@a1an, I tried to warn you above! LOL!

Regarding rubber/latex gloves ... wear them with overalls and rubber booties too! If you don't I guarantee you'll accidentally dump the entire contents on yourself at some point in time and wish you hadn't been wearing your favourite sneakers. :-((. Don't ask me how I know!!! LOL!!!

Ha VV. I had to scroll a few threads up to see what your last post meant.....

I have used alfalfa forever, however more in a dry form spread with a spreader for the lawns...I've tried doing tea once, it stunk like high holey ##@ and having avoided it since.

Ha. Just was surprised the smell was not washing off the hands after a -few- washes.

Regarding the smell of brewing alfalfa tea, if I have it in a closed plastic container, will that be enough to keep the smell from wandering over to my neighbor's yard?

Make sure there is a hold to release the pressure that the fermentation produces or your neighbor will be covered with aa and tea!! Lol

I would not seal it -tight-. It does build up pressure. And not sure how many or how little flies are in your area, but the smell of the liquid attracts them quite a bit. The container I set down that I used to scoop and pour it. I was busing doing other things and when I came back to rinse the container clean, there was a wad of flies on the container and also in the bin that I was doing the brew . Took some ammonia and rinsed it down...

Prior to tea, I've always been worried about the rabbits and critters stealing the pellets away. Hence, I always applied it right before a decent rain.

Ha, with this teamaking, I'm more concerned about how many flies it will attract and the bug bites that come along with it. I'll have to read more on this tea thing but too much - tricontanol- is a bad thing as well

So I need to install a pressure release valve on the top of the garbage can?

Just put it on loosely enough to keep the smell inside butt not so that it explodes. you won't have a problem if you make sure there is an air gap.

@vaporvac Okay, but I guess in that case things can get inside it.

What Things are you Worried about getting in? The Gap is not that big just enough to let the air get out.

@vaporvac Small fruit flies and the like. Okay, I understand the issues

Never fruit flies. Only flies that like garbage. I get flies from time to time but i deal with it and move on because the tea is so good for my roses and other plants.

There simply is not enough tricontanol in aa tea to harm

I dont know how you could achieve such concentrations by fermentation of aa hay. High concentrations of triacontanol are a concern when you are starting from solid pure tricontanol.

Granted grass is much smaller than a rose ;-) ; if I overseed a lawn, I do back off the application rate as I was under the impression --too much Triacontanol-- can actually set back the young turf

Do any of you add molasses and fish emulsion to your alfalfa tea? The same video where I saw that also claims to use an application rate of one cup of alfalfa pellets for every five gallons of water. That is only about 20% of what others here are using.

Have any of you installed a spigot on your alfalfa containers, to help manage the mess when you fill your watering cans? Someone suggested that a normal spigot would quickly get clogged. They are suggesting to use a PVC pipe similar to the one shown below. Has anyone tried this?

I tried alfafa pellets before, I had soaked them for a day and put the wetted pellets under the roses, some got molt and I don’t know if I really noticed a difference. I’m now trying the tea. My husband is not into roses at all but when I asked them about the alfalfa and if I should leave the lid unsecured he jumped up and before I knew it he had a big glass jar with alfalfa and some weird lid. (He had bought it to make mead)

Super curious if this will make good tea lol

Ha! As a beer and hard cider maker, I was going to suggest that, but figured not too many people would have that available. I thought about using a plastic one I got in England years ago that's more like a bucket. P.S. Don't fool around with the "lid" or you'll be sorry! I've had some uncensored words when friends would come over and knock asking, "What does this do?" They soon found out! Good on your DH!!! :-)

westes: I do think adding molasses and fish emulsion to the aa tea is a great idea if you get it together. There is very good rationale for using those additions for soil microbial activity, to develop and maintain the activity at its peak. At least I think so. I do it whenever I can. I have no control plants but my garden is getting better and better.

I am so used to using a large vessel with a lid at the top I just dip and take out what I need. Usually I dilute it a bit with water in another large container with whatever else I want to add (such as fish emulsion......)

I prefer to make the higher concentration fermentation and dilute the tea, or not, as I see fit. Then ferment the aa grass residue one more time, 2X total. To my mind this is more time and space effective. Both those two considerations are important for me.

What is important is whatever you do, do it consistently for a while so you see reproducible effects consistently. And then you can modify.

I think the more dilute fermentation would work too, but I would go with the conc one.

Is there anything I can add at the time I water with alfalfa tea to make the water more alkaline? In another thread, some users have speculated that my garden roses may need more alkaline soil. I measure my soil around pH 6.2, which is normally ideal for roses, but apparently some older roses that use Dr Huey rootstock grow to like more alkaline soil. I would be interested in just testing to see if more alkaline water in the alfalfa tea increases the nutrient uptake for specific plants.

Here is a picture of new basals on my Pink Eden within maybe 10 days of adding aa tea. My garden in this area is very cluttered, I am redoing a lot, I am sorry:

some arrows: (there is one wrong arrow, sorry)

The basals maybe completely coincidental, would happen anyway, due to something else, yes. But they did appear after the aa tea.

There are other roses, most of them showing happy growth. But its hard to take clear pictures because of the untidyness,

laguna:

westes: I really dont know about making your water more alkaline before watering. One thing I can think of is a product called 'pH up' for the garden, not the one for pools. You could add that to your water and ph the water to where you want it. But I imagine you would want to do something simpler and quicker.

@katyajini I was thinking I could try to add bicarbonate (i.e., baking soda). That would certainly raise pH, but I do not know if it is safe for the plant.

No, baking soda would not harm at all provided the final pH of the solution is reasonable. And you are not using so much of it as to cause salt burn. Just measure the pH of the aa tea and add baking soda to till you just get your pH. sodium bicarbonate appears in water from many sources. Its a matter of pH and concentration. Do on a small volume first, keeping track of how much you are adding of what and then you can scale up as needed. Be aware that sometimes solutions that contain a lot of amino acids and proteins (such as aa tea) may suck up a lot of salts without changing pH, ie they can be strong buffers. In this case you cannot use baking soda but need something more caustic such as sodium hydroxide (lye)...just a little bit of lye can make the pH alkaline quickly. the experiment is worth doing, adjusting pH of aa tea to an alkaline range. It may happen that you have to add alkaline water in a different way. But it may work the way you want it to.

Westes I would have a soil test done, I don’t know how reliable the home test kits are. How alkaline is your water now? I seem to remember other posters in CA saying their water is very alkaline. Does Dr. Huey need alkaline conditions or just tolerate them?

@dingo2001 My soil pH is around 6.2, pretty much textbook ideal for roses. The roots of a Redwood tree grew under the rose garden and may have acidified deep soil. In other forums, I am being told that hybrid tea roses on Dr Huey rootstock prefer more alkaline soil after their first three years of growth. My tap water is not alkaline, pH is also just over 6.

So I am simply asking if I can potentially improve the uptake of nutrients by alkalizing the water that contains the fertilizer.

I could attempt to alkalize the soil with dolomite lime, but that takes more than a year to have a real effect, and I want a way to test a theory about the pH that my roses need.

Just a thought westes. Lime may not take as long as a year to start changing pH upwards. As far as I know lime does not require microbial activity to dissolve into the soil and start neutralizing acid molecules. If your soil is pH 6.2 it (lime) will neutralize some acidity with the moisture present and with every watering. My soil is quite acidic too. Less than 6.5 and close to 6.0 in many places. I have read that that range of pH is good for healthy roses. I am not sure why I am worrying. Maybe I heard that slightly alkaline conditions are good for some fragrances.

@katyajini The point was I wanted to test the theory that the roses needed more alkalinity without committing myself to doing that long-term.

This source claims that dolomite lime takes one to two years. At very least, it is probably not months to affect the deep roots.

I wonder how much residual -whatever- is left over in the alfalfa post brewing.

I moved some mulch, dug some pockets. Poured my organic matter into said pockets around each shrub, and placed back dirt/mulch

Going to check the same spots 60 days from now or earlier to see if the alfalfa may matt-and not allow water to permeate as much or by then, all the little earthworms and such might have displaced that alfalfa some

I just read an article about banana peel tea, I might try that next!

You can add some molasses and an airstone (like fishtank) and that will keep it moving for 3- 7 days. It can foam over so keep an eye on it., Make your garage smell like a barn, in a good way.