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Is It Soup Yet?
Her mother's been waiting for her to start cooking for years, but it took a guy to make her do it. Ketzel brews Scott a few gallons of compost tea on Weekend Edition Saturday.
Compost tea Compost tea-maker Brewmeister Bubbling brew August 31, 2002 Compost tea is ancient. You can find references to it in texts dating back to the Roman Empire (Cato's De Agricultura ). So says a real doyenne of dirt, microbial ecologist Elaine Ingham , who wrote this to me in a recent e-mail:
(Cato the Critic) describes a liquid extract of compost. He also describes adding slaves' blood to the liquid applied to the vines. We would add liquid fish today to get a similar effect.
In the 20th century, compost tea makers preferred the Sock Approach. The recipe went something like this: Fill old sock with compost or manure, immerse sock in pail of water, let steep. When color is sufficiently brown, apply to plants.
But that's way too simple for the 21st century. We now take a more microbially balanced view of things (and, wouldn't you know it, a more marketable one). The Sock Approach, after all, left many with nasty-smelling brews that contained as much bad bacteria as good. So, folks in the field applied themselves to compost tea mixes with just the right combination of microorganisms.
As Elaine Ingham puts it, "Tea works because of the biology in it. If you don't have the necessary biology, you can't get all the benefits." | |
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