Compost Tea

[red]

Can't compost tea be used instead of fertilizer ? 

[B.C.C. Lapp]

Can't compost tea be used instead of fertilizer ?

Yes, we use about 50 gallons a year. Depends on what your growing, what your soil needs but for the most part sure, it works pretty well.

[Southside]

If you are talking a garden it works awesome, on 1,000 acres cost and time become an economic limitation is the issue.  

[Don P]

Scale the barrel. Put a pond at the bottom of the thousand, pump the runoff back to the top.

[Southside]

You got the EPA, DEP, WOTUS, and whatever else paperwork figured out? I agree with the principal, remember we use zero chemical, zero fertilizer, etc. The reality of doing it they way you describe however...

[69bronco]

Can't compost tea be used instead of fertilizer ?

We use several barrels full every season on the garden, works wonders.

[Don P]

We poured the last batch in a barrel full of charcoal fines and then worked it in.
As for sediment control plans and "the man". Remember any time I bare more than 10,000 sf that is exactly what I have to do, file a plan, nothing leaves the site. I don't get those generous exemptions you get. Look downstream of any large construction site, and then look below any farm... tons per acre and that is carrying the nutrients and topsoil. Oh it can be done but they won't be happy. Indeed you can catch it and haul it back up the hill, I know cause that's what I gotta do. Clean out the BMPs (big mud puddles) put it back and green it up. In the face of the homeowners chickens stealing my seed  :D.

[Southside]

Clear cuts are by far the worst thing for erosion we have here in Virginia.  30 years of organic matter build up, gone in three years.  Recall the days when the "Soil Conservation Service" ran around the countryside with a dozer and pushed all the topsoil back up the hill and away from the creek for all the tobacco farms? 

[SwampDonkey]

Creek water here, like liquid fertilizer, all them nutrients from woods including the moose poo tea. :D  A 6-10 lb squash, instead of a 4-5 lb one. Cucumbers like zucchini. 8)

[Don P]

Putting on the farm hat, if you are selling it, creek water is frowned on by fisma. We run high bacterial counts up here in the headwaters often enough. Timing from harvest for some stuff. Haven't figured out where the field mice are supposed to "go", but give it time.