Teas and Cellecting Rainwater

[jerrytoo]

Correction, Collecting Rainwater

New here so hope this is in the right forum,

I am moving into a new house and not sure yet what the soil in the garden area of the back yard is like yet. The garden will be mostly tomatoes, peppers, and few cucumbers, some herbs and spices. I do have about 200 lbs of cow manure compost from Lowe's to mix in and might buy more.

Has anyone ever tried making their own fish head tea, how much to dilute it down, and how well did it work?
Is it better than manure tea?
Are either as good as the store bought grow products?

I plan on doing a lot of fishing (bluegill, crappie, catfish) this spring and should have a lot of fish heads, guts, skins, bones, etc and all that I can talk the neighbors out of, so might as well try making tea from, repurpose, all that rich waste.

I will also try to locate a free source of aged barnyard manure, cattle, horse, whatever, from a local farmer or chicken grower and maybe not have to buy the store bought bagged manure and assuming, for tea, that the free stuff will be as good, maybe better, than the high dollar stuff for tea.

As far the teas, manure and fish head, how well does anyone think it would work to mix the two different kind of teas together?

How would using collected rainwater, roof runoff, be to just mix my tea in burlap bags or panty hose and hang over and submerge in one of the 55 gallon barrels and water with the home brew tea from that barrel one day a week, or so?
I should be able to easily hook up, cheaply plumb in some type of leaky, soaker type hoses, or PVC, from the tea barrel to each row in the garden.

Thanks ahead for any advice on the teas and rain barrel ideas.

[bughunter99]

Originally Posted by jerrytoo

Correction, Collecting Rainwater

New here so hope this is in the right forum,

I am moving into a new house and not sure yet what the soil in the garden area of the back yard is like yet. The garden will be mostly tomatoes, peppers, and few cucumbers, some herbs and spices. I do have about 200 lbs of cow manure compost from Lowe's to mix in and might buy more.

Has anyone ever tried making their own fish head tea, how much to dilute it down, and how well did it work?
Is it better than manure tea?
Are either as good as the store bought grow products?

I plan on doing a lot of fishing (bluegill, crappie, catfish) this spring and should have a lot of fish heads, guts, skins, bones, etc and all that I can talk the neighbors out of, so might as well try making tea from, repurpose, all that rich waste.

I will also try to locate a free source of aged barnyard manure, cattle, horse, whatever, from a local farmer or chicken grower and maybe not have to buy the store bought bagged manure and assuming, for tea, that the free stuff will be as good, maybe better, than the high dollar stuff for tea.

As far the teas, manure and fish head, how well does anyone think it would work to mix the two different kind of teas together?

How would using collected rainwater, roof runoff, be to just mix my tea in burlap bags or panty hose and hang over and submerge in one of the 55 gallon barrels and water with the home brew tea from that barrel one day a week, or so?
I should be able to easily hook up, cheaply plumb in some type of leaky, soaker type hoses, or PVC, from the tea barrel to each row in the garden.

Thanks ahead for any advice on the teas and rain barrel ideas.

Hi Jerry,

Welcome!

The reason compost tea is beneficial is has to do with the specific micro organisms that grow in it. They need constant aeration so just sitting and stewing doesn't work. No worries though, fish parts are still great for the garden. You can bury them in your planting holes if you don't have digging varmit issues. If varmits are a problem, get an old blender and grind them up to dump on into a hole in your compost pile. Cover the hole to keep down stink.
You will have awesome compost in no time.

I'm not a fan of manure tea because of the potential for introducing pathogens that can make you sick into the garden. Composted manure however is a great additive. Use a lot of caution where you get it from. People are reporting increasing problems with contaminated straw/hay/manure ruining their soil. What happens is that hay growers will spray their fields with herbicides, horses eat the herbicide hay and poop it out and their manure will still contain active herbicide which can make it impossible to grow in whatever soil it is added too. If its free, make sure you know where it came from and if the horses/cows etc got sprayed hay. Poultry manure has less issues.

Yeah don't buy anymore of the box store manure/compost. That stuff is sketchy. You can tell by the way it smells. Homemade compost smells nice, like soil in the forest. The stuff in the bags smells rotten, like sewage.

Definitely collect the rainwater. Depending on the size of your collection system, they don't always work well with soaker hoses because those often want pressurized water. I have mine hooked up to a regular hose and use it for slow watering the base of plants. Do yourself a favor and elevate your rain barrels a little if the locations you will be watering are at the same level. Tea in the rain barrel is an interesting idea. You would want to find some way to aerate it though.

Stacy

[jerrytoo]

Thanks Stacy, excellent pointers, and most I haven't thought about.

This garden is almost an impromptu garden being rushed into action because of the move from old house to new home 65 miles away. So this year will be an experiment as much as being able to harvest enough come fall to put up and get me through for 12 months. I'll have to let the folks at the farmers market provide a few bushels of pea$ and bean$ come canning season.

Fish Head Tea, I have read about boiling down Fish Head Tea to soften stuff up to maybe a mush to dilute down but I'm wondering if boiling it down might cause the tea's fertilizing qualities to weaken?
If so I'll probably try it by just blending it to a mush and storing it in the fridge or even freeze it to use as needed and forget the barrel thing for tea.
Although using plastic 55 gal barrels, I can install an air fitting in the top of barrel at bung hole and squirt enough air into it to easily water the garden. I used exactly that method of making an outdoor plastic barrel shower for an old backwoods converted fishing school bus that had air brakes, air system. Used the bus system air and the shower worked like a charm just keeping a few lbs pressure in it.

I do have an old well, or trash pump? I might drag out and think about using it somehow in the barrels but gravity will probably work with elevating barrels a few feet.

Horse Manure Tea. I had terrible experience many years ago using my own horse manure cleaned out from stalls that my five horses used on a daily basis. Feeding sweet feed made that manure terrible. It also had hay and wood chips mixed in with it.

Cow or chicken tea from local farmers, I like the thought of using it in a tea but you mentioned pathogens, and maybe even other undesirable stuff. So how would sanitizing the manure someway make it better to use for tea.
Maybe make the manure tea and boil the brew, outdoors / large pot, and the boiling process for x minutes kill any harmful pathogens, etc. But would boiling also weaken manure tea?
Would microwaving manure in an old Microwave x minutes kill harmful ingredients and make better or safer tea?

And btw, for the tea idea, just two days ago I placed a wanted add on my local Yahoo Freecycle requesting an old food processor, or blender, the larger the better. No replies yet. Also watching Craigslist for old cheapos.

I'm retired on a budget and anything I can $ave will go a long way at the farmers market come canning season.

[bughunter99]

Hi Jerry,

Sounds good. To me the best part about gardening is experimentation. Finding what works best for you for your particular garden. I break "rules" all over the place in the garden. Sometimes with big whopping fails, sometimes with success.

I'm a big fan of keeping things simple, mimicking natural processes as close as I can. Doing that tends to give me successes without the big fails I used to have.

I wouldn't bother boiling the fish. I would either bury it in the ground or bury it in the compost, or grind it down add water and pour it on the planting bed. Organic fish fertilizer goes for big big bucks around here. (12 bucks a liter)
It stinks to high heaven though, use it when the breeze is downwind from your house.

Yeah I wouldn't boil the manures. Remember the main benefit of manure teas is the good micro organisms they add to the soil. Its not the nutrition in the poo as much as the it is the organisms that are breaking the poo down. If you boil you kill those too and have just made stinky soup that won't help the plants much. Fast and easy way is a quick flow through, water flowing through the manure directly to the plants. If it doesn't sit around and ferment, pathogen numbers are reduced. If you want longer brewing time, adding bubbling air to the brew can help stop the anaerobic (bad) bacteria from multiplying and can increase your counts of the helpful microorganisms.

Basic safety practices can help too. Keep the brew on the soil, not on the leaves and keep it out of the lettuce and cabbage beds. Wash the produce before consuming etc etc.

The biggest benefits I seem to get in my garden come from the compost pile. Adding a handful of that golden stuff to each hole really makes a difference here. That and lots of good quality mulching to help keep the rain from washing all my good stuff away.

Have fun with it and good luck to you this planting season.

Stacy