Does anyone use these? Are they better than normal nettle or comfrey tea? And what about adding molasses?
Is this a lot of hype to sell expensive equipment? Or is it something only to be used in a yard? (on the other side of the Atlantic as opposed to a garden on this side)
There is a suggestion that normal compost teas could breed nasties like Ecoli, has anyone had any problems. Though I certainly do not drink it.
And manure won't have E.coli in? Scaremongering if you ask me.
Adrian
From the internet chats I have had with people on the other side of the pond - a lot of them tend to have a verrrrrry different approach to us where gardening is concerned. A lot of it seems to be about getting soil tests and then re-building the soil with imported materials at almost the molecular level to get exactly the right N, P, K, acidity etc. There also seems to be a lot of squeamishness about anything which is not sterilised and pre-packaged. I think that maybe we are much more likely to be blessed with better soil to start with in the UK though so maybe we don't need to analyse it as much as they do.
Also they say tomato whereas I say tomato so I say let's call the whole thing off!
There is a lot of conversation here in Oz too about aerated compost teas, especially on large organic properties of 10 to 100 hectares. The theory looks good.
I make worm wee and some compost tea which may get aerated by the hose when I refill the bucket but that is all. I would think that the extra air added into the liquid would benefit most micro organisms.
Probably in the future I will repurpose an old 100lb gas bottle and fill it with air from my air compressor and let it slowly bubble into a bucket of worm tea.
I have tried a small solar powered fish pond aerator into a bucket of liquid manure and got great results of lowering the smell around about the bucket. Unfortunately it didn't last a year and can't buy a motor by itself.