[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[compost_tea] More SoilSoup



I used SoilSoup in my garden for two years and it definitely improved my soil and plant growth.  During the first season, improvement was astonishingly rapid.  The second year was not the same; an equilibrium seemed to have been reached and the depth of quality soil is the same as it was last June.  I believe I have reached the point of diminishing returns for a bacterial tea:  without fungus, any further improvement will be slow as molasses (couldn't resist).  So now I have a new machine which has been well-tested and shown to produce fungi in quantity and keep it active.  Kirk, I see your point.
 
However, I may just have been lucky.  From the start, I approached tea making with great care, knowing the danger of using too much nutrient solution.  Even before I heard Elaine speak, I had put the felt compost sock aside in favor of a clean but aged nylon, a relic of my days in the Big Corporation.  Cleaning the bioblender, which always had biofilm in its numerous nooks and crannies, was a long process and I was never highly confident in the end results.  Some areas are impossible to reach and I just had to hope that the hydrogen peroxide had encountered all the biofilm and that I had adequately rinsed it (with the electric motor attached, soaking is not an option).
 
A friend did make a batch, certain that she carefully followed instructions, and it never foamed.  She applied it to her garden and plant death ensued. 
 
To me, the bottom line is that consumers should be able to buy a machine, follow the recipes and produce material that, at the least, is harmless.  They should be able to do this without modifying the machine.  I understand the limitations of bacterial tea and think it is very unfortunate that SoilSoup can't yield fungi.  It puts users in the position of spending more money to buy another brewer that IS capable of extracting and nurturing fungi.  But producing stuff that kills plants is much worse.  Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath begin, "First, do no harm."  Sure, we aren't medical doctors?
 
And then people generalize about all CT based on results from SoilSoup bioblenders and other problematic machines.  Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott and others who can't support compost tea have a point.  There's good stuff and bad stuff, but it is all called compost tea (yes, Elaine, your point about nomenclature is well taken) and the average gardener thinks it is all the same thing.  As I said before, here in the home of SoilSoup, the terms "SoilSoup" and compost tea are considered interchangeable by many.  The teeth grind on.
 
Susan Cruver

Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
ADVERTISEMENT

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
compost_tea-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com



Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.