It's kind of evolved Dr J. Maybe an old habit that was hard to shake, but I started out using it on are regular, weekly "feeding" schedule. It seemed to work just dandy, but i had no real way to quantify that. More recently I've only been using it if I feel a plant needs it .... which is pretty unlikely given the assortment of dry amendments that are already in the soil.
Teas can be a great tool, but I've really been in to simplifying things lately. The worm bin is where it's at IMO.
I really have to agree with you on both counts. I do think the 'feed schedule' mentality is a holdover from the synthetic growing days, where it made sense because your limiting factors were salt buildup in the medium and the feeding rate of the plant: hence cycles of flushing and "precise" feed schedules. The further away we get from thinking of plants as "things" (as opposed to beings), the easier it is to understand that you're job as a gardener is to pay attention to the plants to HELP THEM get what they need, when they need it. kind of a teamwork situation rather than a master-slave dynamic (yes i am making an oblique reference to gwf hegel here).
As to the worms, i never would have imagined how much fun, and how into farming worms I am. I've been getting more and more conscious about what I feed those lil fellers to make sure both they're happy and the vermipost they're making is rich.
On that note, i've been kinda slurrying my worm food. I'll chop it in my under-the-sink compost bin (that one is strictly for the worms, the compost pile outside gets everything they don't like to eat!) routinely and let it rot a bit for a week or two. I'm now completely avoiding garlic, onion, and potatoes and have phased out all of the bread products that I used to allow (unless i absolutely have to add something dry for moisture purposes and don't want to add more cardboard or leaves). I've been adding my spent kelp meal and alfalfa meal to the slurry as well. The upside of slurrying is a ready-to-eat foodsource that has a good moisture content and can be fed in easy to handle globs. The downsides are (1) difficult to weigh if you like to keep a precise track of this, (2) possibility of anaerobic conditions if you let the slurry sit/rot too long, (3) difficulty discerning what stuff your worms like and eat quickly, and what they don't like--if you're into that sort of thing. I'd recommend waiting until you get a little bit of an idea of your worms' tastes before slurrying.
I'm hoping that by paying closer attention to what goes into my worm bin, I'll have a nice diverse, rich vermicompost with which to topdress and make foliars. I think I'd like to spend a little more time learning about the phyllosphere in general, but I have yet to realize the benefits of a strained ewc+molasses tea foliar, particularly in autoimmune defenses. Looking forward to it!
be easy,
