Hey guys, its been a cold winter, and it looks like spring has come a little early. It feels so good too! It also feels great to let everyone know that our end of year inventory is over and we are again fully stocked with all the essentials you need for your grow room. We are also gearing up for what is anticipated as the biggest grow season ever. Viva 2010, with outdoor and indoor projects being taken on in extremely aggressive levels, its super exciting for us to be able to provide for all the Sonoma County growers and beyond who are getting involved. We have -

• Traditional soils, organic blends, soilless blends, rockwool, and coco pots ready to go.
• Grow lights, electronic ballasts, magnetic ballasts, reflectors, high output fluorescent systems, LED Grow lights, replacement bulbs.
• Hydro trays, containers, smart pots, complete hydro setups.
• Complete organic and hydroponic nutrient lines – General Hydroponics, General Organics, House and Garden, Cutting Edge, Technaflora and tons of grow and bloom enhancers and accelerators.
• Carbon filters of every size and shape
• Wall, pedestal and exhaust fans and blowers of every shape and size
• Ducting, clamps, foil tape, flanges, reducers, extenders, splitters, splicers
• Co2 generators, controllers and parts
• Organic and chemical pest control products
• Master light controllers, Environmental controllers, High temp. shut off devices
• Water purification systems, accessories and replacement filters
• Ready to grow, self contained Darkrooms
• Valves, elbows, tees, custom hydro fittings, replacement sprayers and misters
• Full service repair dept. complete with loaner ballasts
• Full time accredited botanist

We love to serve and provide the best advice and products available in the indoor/hydroponic/organic gardening industry, give our friendly grow experts a call today and let us know how we can help you. 1-866-PGS-GROW

If you haven’t seen this yet, here is your chance. So many people ask us to send them this video on DVD. Now you can watch it over and over anytime you want! John Evans shows us how he holds 9 world records for HUGE crops. We sell ALL  Bountea products! 1-866-PGS-GROW. The secret is in the soil!

Someone just came in and told us about EM1. It’s a beneficial micro-organism product that unfortunately, due to California’s bureaucratic system is not available to us locally. It can however be found online, and we are looking into the logistics of stocking it soon. What is exciting about this is its an anaerobic form of beneficial microorganisms that can be used in both your already brewed teas and soil or soil-less mediums. EM1 is what is used to create Bocashi.

Compost teas have often been confused with EM-1® Microbial Inoculant. Compost tea is a liquid extract made from aerobically bubbling air through compost in order to grow aerobic microbes. The tea’s quality is directly related to the quality of the compost and has a very short shelf life. The aerobic microbes require air to stay alive. Once the air is gone, they start to die off. Compost tea quality varies from batch to batch as the microbial populations vary with each new batch.

Commercial Tea Brewer using EM in San Francisco

Effective Microorganisms™ contains facultative microbes, is consistent in quality, and is very stable, with a shelf life of several years.

Our suggestions are to make your compost with EM-1® Microbial Inoculant to ensure a high quality compost (see our composting section to see that the use of EM-1® Microbial Inoculant increases the production of aerobic bacteria in compost and also speeds up the composting process). Once the compost is complete, you can make a high quality compost tea..

To make compost tea, follow the instructions of Dr. Elaine Ingham. She is the authority on compost teas. You can hear some of her lectures at the ACRES USA conferences. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. The brewing process takes about 24 hours. Once the aeration cycle is completed, add Activated EM-1® Microbial Inoculant at a rate of 1:50 (1 gallon per 55-gallon drum works great!).

This is a commercial-sized tea brewer used at Harding Golf Course in San Francisco. They brew compost tea and inoculate with EM-1® Microbial Inoculant as part of their greens program.

Compost teas are seriously popular these days, and for good reason, they work! However, many people come into our stores unsure as to how to brew and use compost teas. The Bountea compost tea brew kit is an awesome and easy way to start making your own tea and reaping the benefits of micro organisms and Alaskan Humisoil.

A Complete Premium Organic Compost Tea System * Winner of 9 World Records for Giant Vegetables * Grow stronger, healthier plants * Increase resistance to pests and diseases * Reduce the need for fertilizers, compost and watering Each Bountea Compost Tea Brew Kit contains: Living Alaska Humisoil to provide a rich compost starter filled with beneficial microorganisms — Bountea Bioactivator, to help those microorganisms flourish — Marine Mineral Magic M3 to supply plant nutrients, minerals and trace elements — Root Web, special species of mycorrhizae fungi to help transport nutrients to plant roots. The Bountea Compost Tea System greatly promotes healthy and sustainable soil ecology. This in turn allows plants to use all the nutrients available in the soil and grow stronger and healthier. Care for the soil — Care for the Earth

Hey gardeners…. Hope you had a terrific weekend, and I really hope your summer garden is prospering. If you ever want to fight disease, improve growth, increase yield, and enhance flavor naturally, come grab some of our fresh brewed Bountea brand compost tea. We run a rigorous quality control agenda and brew our tea with the highest standards. Compost tea has a very limited shelf life, and we make sure our teas are fresh and totally Aerobic goodness. Check out my other blog posts on compost teas and see for yourself what the tea can do for you today. So many people come in and ask us what they can do about a myriad of problems they are experienceing. If there has ever been a blanket solution that would work for almost any problem, it is compost tea. They virtually can’t be over applied, they fight and prevent, molds, viruses, blight, insects, and enviromental issues. We now have fresh teas ALWAYS stocked, with the brew date on the bottle. Come on in and grab a gallon today for $20. 1-866-PGS-GROW.

Organic nutrient manufacturers are very secretive about their recipes. This makes it very difficult to write about them except where I have seen the results. Some commercial organic nutrients have been certified by independent organic bodies. There are some products that are claimed to be organic but have not been certified. This may be simply because the manufacturer wants to keep the ingredients secret. In the cases where the nutrient is not certified you have to decide whether you trust the manufacturer. There have been cases where the producer just uses the word organic to mean that there is some part of the nutrient made from organic products with a base of chemicals.

It is a common myth that you cannot provide enough nitrogen with organic nutrients. With modern organic nutrients it is quite possible to over-fertilise with nitrogen, so always use the nutrients as recommended on the labels. Don’t assume stronger solutions are better. Too much, even of organic nitrogen, will result in weak growth that is more vulnerable to pest attack. This can provoke the production of too many leaves, few flowers and tasteless harvests.

Bio Sevia is one of the latest organic nutrients and will give excellent results surprising to those who may have tried older attempts at organic nutrients made by less technically-minded producers. I know some people who have managed to use the new Bio Sevia range in hydroponics but the technique is so intricate that it would require an article on its own. I would recommend only using organics in soil unless you want to learn degree-level hydroponics. The use of their Trichoderma fungus additive is very much recommended to drive the best results from your plant. Bio Sevia is certified organic by Qualité France.

Canna have recently revised and improved the formulae of their Bio Vega or Bio Flores. They should now give even better results than before. Simple to use they are another one part organic nutrient for use with soil. The ingredients are all plant extracts but only hops are specified on the labels. Hop waste is a very rich organic nutrient mostly obtained from the beer brewing industry. For the those who don’t know the hop, the hop vine is a massive, fast-growing plant that reaches 8 metres tall from ground level every year. The hop vine drags huge amounts of minerals through its large root system. One of the problems of growing hops is feeding them fast enough to keep up with their growth. The hop flowers contain lots of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus as well as most of the minor minerals that were present in the soil in which it was grown. Canna Bio Flores and Vega are certified organic by the official organic certification body for the Netherlands.

Another Dutch certified organic nutrient with as many satisfied growers as Canna is Bio Bizz. Although they do not reveal the ingredients they are all plant- and mineral-derived. As they a little cheaper than the Canna products they are used by the majority of organic growers whom I know. Perhaps that says more about my friends than the relative quality of the two nutrients.

An old favourite that is still used by many organically-minded gardeners is Earth Juice. The manufacturers give the ingredients on the label. So, if you want to add your own favourite additives you will know whether they are already in the mix. Because of the high content of bird and bat guano it can smell quite objectionably bad to some people. Earth Juice contains molasses so you will not need to add any carbohydrate additives like Carbo Load. Both the bloom and grow formulae contain phosphates and potash so you may not need to add them to your soil.

Most one part organic nutrients will be short of phosphorus and/or calcium as they are one part nutrients (not A & B). It is quite difficult to make calcium and phosphate soluble at the concentrations needed in a one part nutrient. This is quite easy to allow for by adding rock phosphate or bonemeal to your soil mixture. The fungi in your soil will make these available to the plant.

Local Harvest is another great organic liquid Organic nutrient that performs just like a salt/chemical based fertilizer would. Based out of Sebastopol Ca. They have a Grow and Bloom and a Calcium supplement. I have heard great things about this product.

Another way to feed your plants organically is to make your own “compost tea”. Though some of these are made from well-rotted garden compost dissolved in water there are simpler, faster methods. Garden manure will contain a large range of organisms, not just those that help your plants. It is not possible to reproduce the entire ecosystem indoors so you must select those that help. These live teas can be made from fresh plants and manures. Traditional recipes involved comfrey, nettles and other herbs rotted in water for two weeks. This produced a very stinky liquid that was very good for the plants.

Modern compost teas are made with fungal or bacterial starters Some contain both bacteria and fungi. An air pump is essential to ensure that the mixture stays oxygenated. Keeping high levels of oxygen in the tea reduces the smell to tolerable levels but it is still best to put your composting bucket in a relatively unused room. High oxygenation also benefits the better types of bacteria and fungi. Compost tea made without oxygenation could produce very high levels of the most dangerous fungi and bacteria, for you and your plants. Using Liquid Oxygen or other hydrogen peroxide solutions is not possible with compost teas as the useful organisms will die immediately they are added.

Bacteria-dominated teas should contain plenty of protein rich plant matter such as vegetable waste, especially from beans and leafy vegetables. The bacteria-dominated teas can be diluted and used as foliar sprays when plants are young.

Fungi-dominated compost teas should be given small amounts of molasses or other sugary foods to feed the fungi. Too much sugar can be detrimental producing an overgrowth of common yeast, it is best to add a little every day. Phosphates can be added by the action of the fungi or bacteria on rock phosphate or bat guano.

Compost teas must always be made with chlorine-free water. Chlorine is added to the water-supply because it kills a wide range of bacteria, fungi and other disease-causing organisms, having the same action as bleach. It will also kill your beneficial organisms. You can get rid of low levels of chlorine by leaving the water to stand overnight but to be absolutely sure use a charcoal-based water filter or Reverse Osmosis filter.

If you don’t like the idea of all this bother for your plant food, you can get the same benefits by using any of the liquid organic nutrients as a short cut. Make up the solutions in your reservoir as directed on the bottles. Add a bacterial or fungal starter. Keep the mixture heavily oxygenated by an air pump driving air through airstones. Clean the airstones regularly so they do not become blocked. Use the liquid to feed your plants whenever they need it. After a week make another batch of nutrient. If your mixture smells sweet and yummy you can keep a little of your old nutrient tea in the bottom of the reservoir to start the new batch. However, after some time you will lose some of the organisms you need and should add the starters occasionally. You do not have to wash your reservoir thoroughly, the beneficial organisms should be keeping the nasty ones in check

Thanks Urban Garden Magazine for the Article – Original Page Here

Happy ALOHA FRIDAY gang. We want everyone to know that it’s not all about selling products for us, we love to share our experiences and give grow tips that we know are going to work and make your plants happy! Compost teas continue to be one of the most important developments in horticulture. An ancient technology, compost teas are seeing a huge renaissance of interest. Modern gardeners are evoloving the teas to an even more beneficial level, through the use of refractometers (brix), microscopes that measure plate levels of micro organisms, and the advancement of organic nutrients that feed the micro organisms created when we brew teas. Modern science meets old school technology and all of us prosper from it.

Today we have a great video on how to make your very own Compost Tea brewer with ingredients you can buy from just about any hardware store. I have personally tried this recipe and it’s terrific!

We really appreciate the enormous response everyone has given to our new site! All your comments and compliments are seriously appreciated! Have a great weekend, and brew some compost tea for me. ALOHA

Aerated compost teas are the latest in scientific organic research today. In many ways, aerated teas offer greater immediate benefits than classic compost, manure, or other homemade foliar teas. Just by applying a cheap aquarium air pump to a 5 gallon bucket of tea, you can get amazing results. (Cheap, inexpensive aquarium airstones are also recommended to be applied to the hose in the water. This produces a better distribution of smaller air bubbles to make the aerobic soil/comosting microbes breed better.) Instead of just brewing teas for quick valuable water soluble nutrients from the compost or manure, you can breed a larger population of beneficial aerobic bacteria and fungi in the tea. It is the microherd in our soil, compost, and teas, that is really more important in soil development and disease control than just the soluble nutrients. Aerobic microherd populations reduce offensive smells in compost piles, the compost teas, and the soil. Aerobic microherd also break down bad poisons and pathogens into safe nutrients in hot compost piles and aerated compost teas. Diluted anaerobic compost or manure teas are great liquid fertilizers and disease controllers also. Many people prefer the anaerobic teas better because they are simpler and easier to design and apply. However, recent research has proven that the aerobic microherd populations fight diseases and bad soil and plant pathogens better and supply more power to your soil’s total health and texture. Keep in mind that all types of organic and natural foliar teas are designed to complement and enhance, not replace, basic composting, green manuring, and organic mulching techinques in your garden. The soil microherd continue over months and years to eat up insoluble OM in the existing soil and the extra soil amendments and break them down into more available soluble nutrients for plants later in the year.

Technically even in un-aerated teas there is still some aerobic action taking place for several days. All fungi is aerobic. Some bacteria are totally aerobic, some bacteria are totally anaerobic, and some bacteria can act both aerobic or anerobic based on the soil or tea environment. Un-aerated teas can continue to keep alive some aerobic or aerobic/anaerobic microbes, for up to 10 days in a watery solution. After 10 days, the whole un-aerated tea will contain only anerobic microbes.

You can expect different microbial population levels in your tea based on weather, climate, temperature, seasons, etc. In the summertime you can expect your teas to brew faster and get to your optimal microbial levels faster than in cooler fall weather. Also tea odors, color, and foaminess on top of the tea, will vary based on temperatures too.

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There are several different levels of teas as well as different recipes and styles. Here is the simple steps as outlined by one of our own GardwenWeb members who is an expert on teas and compost. This is a brief description of the different strength levels of tea making as outlined by “BILL_G” :

Level 1: Put a shovel full of good compost in a 5 gallon bucket of water, wait one week, and apply to garden or lawn either full strength or up to a 1:4 water ratio. This is an excellent source of ready available soluble nutrients. NOTE: If you stir your brew daily or every other day, it helps get more oxygen to the mix for better decomposition and better aerobic microbial population growth.

Level 2: Do same as above, but now add to the recipe a few cups of alfalfa pellets or some other cattle feed. Now you have extra nitrogen and trace elements from the bacterial foods.

Level 3: Do all above plus now add the air pump bubbler. Now you have more aerobic microbes to add to your soluble nutrients in the tea.

Level 4: Do all the above and now add a few tblsp of molasses or other simple sugar products. Now you really maximize the aerobic microbes in the tea, which in turn produce even more extra soluble nutrients from the bacterial foods.

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Here is my suggestions also. You can add more high nitrogen foods in the tea. Remember the only main ingredients that are necessary to make a good bacterial and soluble nutrients tea are: aerobic compost and sugar products. Everything else is optional. Your teas can be as creative as you are. Let’s assume a 5 gallon tea recipe for our example:

1. Add 1/2 bucket of finished hot compost. This supplies most of the beneficial aerobic microbes and soluble nutrients. Some people use slightly immature aerobic compost because it has more fresh nitrogen in it, but less microbes than finished hot compost.

2. Use 2-3 tblsp molasses, brown sugar, or corn syrup. This feeds and breeds the aerobic bacteria. Sugar products are mostly carbon which is what the microherd eat quickly. Add about 1-2 more tblsp of molasses for every 3 days of aerobic brewing to make sure the sugar is digested before touching the soil at application time, and to guarantee that the aerobic bacteria population stays strong throughout the brewing process. Molasses also contains sulfur which is a mild natural fungicide. Molasses is also a great natural deodorizer for fishy teas. For a more fungal tea don’t add too much simple sugar or molasses to your aerobic teas. Use more complex sugars, starches and carbohydrates like in seaweed, rotten fruit, soy sauce, or other fungal foods.

3. Add 1-2 cans of mackerel, sardines, or other canned fish. Supplied extra NPK, fish oil for beneficial fungi, calcium from fish bones. Most commercial fish emulsions contain no fish oils and little to no aerobic bacteria. Fresh fish parts can be used, but because of offensive odors, it should composted separately with browns like sawdust first before adding to the tea brew. NOTE: For those organic gardeners who prefer vegetarian soil amendments, you can skip the fishy ingredients, it’s not necessary. There is plenty of NPK in alfalfa meal and other grains that you can use.

(NOTE: If you use canned fish products, you may want to let it decompose mixed with some finished compost, good garden soil, etc. in a separate closeable container for a few days before using. Since most canned meat products contain preservatives, this will guarantee that the good microbes in the tea will not be killed off or harmed in brew making.)

4. Add 1 pack fresh seaweed. Supplies all extra trace elements. Seaweed can contain about 60 trace elements and lots of plant growth hormones. Seaweed is a beneficial fungal food source for soil microbes. Liquifying the seaweed makes it dissolve even faster.

5. Add 1-2 cups of alfalfa meal, corn meal, cattle feed, horse feed, catfish or pond fish feed. Supplies extra proteins and bacteria. Corn meal is a natural fungicide and supplies food for beneficial fungi in the soil.

6. Add rotten fruit for extra fungal foods. Add green weeds to supply extra bacterial foods to the tea.

7. Good ole garden soil is an excellent free biostimulant. Garden soil is full of beneficial aerobic bacteria, fungi, and other great microbes. Some people make a great microbial tea just out of soil. Forest soil is usually higher in beneficial fungi than rich garden soil.

8. Fill the rest of the container with rainwater, compost tea, or plain de-chlorinated water to almost the top of bucket. You can make good “rain water” from tap water by adding a little Tang (citrus acid) to the water mix before brewing. Urine water is also an excellent organic nitrogen source for teas (up to 45% N).

9. Some people like to add 1-2 tblsp of apple cider vinegar to add about 30 extra trace minerals and to add the little acidicity that is present in commercial fish emulsions. Many fish emulsions contain up to 5% sulfuric acid to help it preserve on the shelf and add needed sulfur to the soil. You can add extra magnesium and sulfur by adding 1-2 tblsp of Epsom salt to the tea.

10. Apply the air pump to the tea. NOTE: Some organic tea brewers prefer not to use the air pump method. You can get some extra oxygen in the tea by stirring it daily or every other day. The air pump just makes the oxygen levels in the tea happen faster than by hand, thus greatly increasing the rate of aerobic microbial growth in the tea. If you prefer to use the air pump, let it bubble and brew for at least 1-3 days. (NOTE: The 3 days limit is just a good guideline. The real test of brewing time is by your own sight and smell test, because everybody’s tea is different due to the various microbial species and breeding activity that takes place during the brewing process.) The aerobic tea is ready to use when it has either an earthy or “yeasty” smell or a foamy layer on top of the tea. If not satisfied with the look or the smell of the tea, go up to a week of brewing. The extra brewing time will help the microbes digest more of the insoluble bacterial and fungal foods in the tea and make it more available for your plant’s or your soil’s nutritional needs.

Apply this tea full strength to get full nutrient levels per plant, or dilute it from a 1:1 down to a 1:5 water ratio to spread the beneficial microbes over a 1-acre garden area (mix 5 gallons of tea per 25 gallons of rainwater).

To reduce straining, you can place all your ingredients in a closed panty hose or laundry bag during the brewing cycle (don’t use a too fine mesh bag or the beneficial fungi can’t flow properly through the bag).

Here’s another method to avoid straining and to maximize the amount of microbes in application: Simply turn off the air pump, stir the entire mixture real hard, and then let the mixture sit still for about 30 minutes. Scoop off the top juice straight into a watering can for application.

You can apply with a watering can, or simple cup, or in a sprinkling system. All compost teas can be used as a foliar feed or soil drench around plants. They also make great compost pile nitrogen and bacterial activators to heat up the pile for faster finished composting. Always take the remains for teas and recycle them back into your compost piles.

As stated, you can use your homemade tea as a foliar feed or as a soil drench or both. Soil drenches are best for building up the soil microbial activities and supplying lots of beneficial soluble NPK to the plant’s root system and the topsoil texture. Foliar feeds are best for quick fixes of trace elements and small portions of other soluble nutrients into the plant through its leaves. Foliar feeds are also good for plant disease control. Foliar feeds work best when used with soil drenches or with lots of organic mulches around plants. You can poke holes in the soil around crop roots with your spade fork, to get more oxygen in the soil to further increase organic matter decomposition and increase microbial activity in the soil.

Aerated teas can also be used to greatly speed up the decomposition process of hot compost piles. The extra aerobic microbes in the tea will breed and cooperate with the aerobic microbes in the organic matter in the compost pile.

You should not use any liquid soaps as a spreader-sticker agent in a fertilizing/biostimulant tea like this. It can hinder or harm your aerobic microbes that you just grew in the tea. You need to use better products in your tea like liquid molasses, dry molasses powder, fish oil, or yucca extract as a spreader-sticker.

A good aerated tea is very economical. 5 gallons can be diluted to biostimulate an entire acre of garden via foliar spraying only. If you soil drench only, it takes at least 15 gallons of tea, before diluting, to cover an acre of garden soil. Also there is enough aerobic bacteria and fungi in a good 5 gallon batch of aerated tea, that is the equivalent of about 10 tons or 40 cubic yards of regular compost!

These homemade aerated compost teas are just as powerful, maybe more powerful, than any commercial natural or organic fertilizer or soil amendment on the market today. And they are a lot cheaper too! So have fun, be creative, and keep on composting!

Happy Gardening!

Original Article Here – Thanks GardenWeb.com