John Evans' Bountea

[nuglets]

Yeah, if it is not convenient, then sure, that's a good point for buying the ingredients. But just one thing: even in an apartment, a tupperware full of vermicompost, a bottle of molasses and a ziploc bag full of humic acid or alfalfa meal is on hand, no? You might just be able to whip up your batch of one of the recipes here for, maybe $1 or less. But that's only if you have the desire, otherwise the price is a small one for convenience when you factor it like you did for your needs.

that does sound super easy to make. i just don't know enough about the whole process and what i need to be looking for. this is my first venture into the organic world. baby steps...lol. after i get some more knowledge under my belt then i'm gonna maybe look into making my own. thanks for the tips.

 

[singingcrow]

Cool! Im still learning a lot too! I think we will always be learning! But, check out the compost tea recipes to see what is out there. I just recently ordered a lot of the ingredients (additives like rock powders and humic acid) but with the whole bill, and figuring in the price and how many batches in a 5 gallon bucket it will make, I have figured growing organically is about 10% of the price of inorganic. Seriously, but that is if you make your own hygrozyme, compost tea and use a worm farm or composter. Woot!

 

[Kalyx]

• "tea, feed, tea, feed, water..." schedule so i think i am going to follow that. i will be using house and garden soil a&b and coco a&b for the feedings. just wanted to see what you guys thought and if anyone else has experience using john's teas. any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.​

  
  
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Yeah, AACT is the new thing the industry is trying to sell us as a "kit". Personally I wouldn't buy the kit, I'd just read all the tea threads here. After a good read you will confidently make your own AACT for a fraction of the cost of 'activator' and such. The main thing you need is a strong air pump and a cleanable diffuser. Teas work better with organic inputs but will still help out that synth soil ab, its just coming at the roots with both chelated instant absorb junk food and the food web. Its definitely not the same as living organic soil gardenig, and the web will not be fully functional as the synth will interfere with the microbial relationship to the root and its exudates.

nuglets

Starting to doubt the validity of this "Organics" section. Has no one really ever heard of this stuff? I may have to quit RIU if no one responds. Could be a sign of the lack of actual knowledge here.​

RUI is more about reading the threads than asking questions and having gurus bless you with the dankest paragraph ever. Plus every organic gardener has our own style and preferences. Some 'ganic snobs probably just laughed reading about putting synth nutes on soil/coco in the first place. LOL! (synth degrades your mix the more you put in)

Rising Moon

All these just seem like products with fancy websites...

I am confident that I could make a tea just as good, without spending...$24.99 for each 12 gallons of tea I brew.

If you have a worm bin, and half-way decent backyard composting system, you could make thousands of gallons of tea virtually for free...with some know how, an air pump and a bucket.

All this hype about inoculants and bacteria is just because science is catching up with folk organic technology, and most of these "must have, wonder inoculants" are just ordinary parts of a healthy compost pile. Science is just now realizing that these are actually worth paying attention to, and more and more products and people to capitalize on this "new" information.​

Very well put. Capitalize is the key word. All AACT inputs are cheap and readily available even if you don't produce these inputs yourself in your own hippy utopia. I live in the concrete desert and still make dank teas when its 110 outside. Talk about saving money on nutes! Make your OWN AACT so that YOU can be the one capitalizing on your gardening life style. Get all the ingredients local and let babylon bet on futures forecasting while you actually PRODUCE for your family in reality.

for the same reason i don't have cows on my property and make my own milk. just don't have the time to do everything. the alska humisoil and bioactivator costs me like $100 to run an entire crop of 18 plants. seems pretty reasonable to me. also saves me money on nutes so it's basically free. doesn't sound like overpriced at all.

If you have time to smoke weed and enjoy being cannablissed then you have time to throw compost and EWC in a sock, a few feed liquids into a bucket of non-chlorinated water, and fire up an air pump. Voila, home-made organic "nutrient"! Peace and happy brews with good head!

 

[nuglets]

• "tea, feed, tea, feed, water..." schedule so i think i am going to follow that. i will be using house and garden soil a&b and coco a&b for the feedings. just wanted to see what you guys thought and if anyone else has experience using john's teas. any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.​

  
  
  ​

Yeah, AACT is the new thing the industry is trying to sell us as a "kit". Personally I wouldn't buy the kit, I'd just read all the tea threads here. After a good read you will confidently make your own AACT for a fraction of the cost of 'activator' and such. The main thing you need is a strong air pump and a cleanable diffuser. Teas work better with organic inputs but will still help out that synth soil ab, its just coming at the roots with both chelated instant absorb junk food and the food web. Its definitely not the same as living organic soil gardenig, and the web will not be fully functional as the synth will interfere with the microbial relationship to the root and its exudates.



RUI is more about reading the threads than asking questions and having gurus bless you with the dankest paragraph ever. Plus every organic gardener has our own style and preferences. Some 'ganic snobs probably just laughed reading about putting synth nutes on soil/coco in the first place. LOL! (synth degrades your mix the more you put in)



Very well put. Capitalize is the key word. All AACT inputs are cheap and readily available even if you don't produce these inputs yourself in your own hippy utopia. I live in the concrete desert and still make dank teas when its 110 outside. Talk about saving money on nutes! Make your OWN AACT so that YOU can be the one capitalizing on your gardening life style. Get all the ingredients local and let babylon bet on futures forecasting while you actually PRODUCE for your family in reality.



If you have time to smoke weed and enjoy being cannablissed then you have time to throw compost and EWC in a sock, a few feed liquids into a bucket of non-chlorinated water, and fire up an air pump. Voila, home-made organic "nutrient"! Peace and happy brews with good head!

thanks for the great input. i am checking out threads now. just like any learning process though it takes time and you have to weed out the good info from the bad.

you are wrong though...not everyone has the time to make compost and deal with all that goes along with that. plus i have heard some horror stories using mollasses. for me using humisoil is a happy medium. plus, paying $100 to run a full crop does not seem like that much of an investment. i would gladly pay that just to not have to go to the store or have a compost pile in or around my house.

also, you should read the post again. i was only making a joke about no one responding to my thread. it was more of a bump to the thread. that's why i put smiley faces into it. using organic teas with synthetic nutes (especially quality nutes like h&g) is done by MANY gardeners. including ones here in the organic section. using a base 2 part nute with an organic tea does not seem outlandish to me or the professionals that i know.

 

[Kalyx]

Hey bro just trying to help. I'll try once more...

You can easily BUY high quality compost, and yeah don't use molasses as if it's a bottled nute, just feed it to your teas (and it's great for dechlorinating the water too). You are assuming a pile is REQUIRED. I'm wrong tho? RUI isn't about right and wrong but sharing perspectives and info. If you pay someone to measure out/break down the AACT inputs for you that's fine but you will pay way more than buying the inputs for yourself.

Lastly, many "professionals" in agriculture are fine dumping chelated petrochemical inputs all over their plants. I personally do not consume synth nourished plants of any type if I can avoid it (and for cannabis I am strict to this rule because the plant is usually combusted) In true organics we rely on the innate balance of nature's microbes. What's really up to us is making sure they are present (AACT is super) and nourished (completely amended living soil mixes), no man-made inputs (synth) required if you have a hippy utopia with all ingredients OR you buy natures goodness conveniently bagged up and bring it home...same difference you can still grow living organic.

Check out microbeorganics.com for a bomb tutorial. A bit easier than sifting thru opinions on threads. Also, Elaine Ingham is a powerhouse on AACT. Tea time!

 

[Wolverine97]

also, you should read the post again. i was only making a joke about no one responding to my thread. it was more of a bump to the thread. that's why i put smiley faces into it. using organic teas with synthetic nutes (especially quality nutes like h&g) is done by MANY gardeners. including ones here in the organic section. using a base 2 part nute with an organic tea does not seem outlandish to me or the professionals that i know.

Actually, you should never mix the two unless you have no other option. They function in totally different ways. In true organic gardening (soil growing) it's all about the life in the soil. Synthetic nutrients kill of healthy microbe populations in your soil. If you're going organic, you should focus on building a living soil, and let that feed your plants. There's a reason that commercial farmers have to constantly re-apply heavy petrol based "fertilizers" every year, it strips the soil of it's natural ability to regenerate itself (there are many other variables, but I'm not getting into it all)...

 

[nuglets]

Actually, you should never mix the two unless you have no other option. They function in totally different ways. In true organic gardening (soil growing) it's all about the life in the soil. Synthetic nutrients kill of healthy microbe populations in your soil. If you're going organic, you should focus on building a living soil, and let that feed your plants. There's a reason that commercial farmers have to constantly re-apply heavy petrol based "fertilizers" every year, it strips the soil of it's natural ability to regenerate itself (there are many other variables, but I'm not getting into it all)...

how is that though (not trying to be a dick) but the 2 large growers that i know both use a mixture of organic and synthetic nutes.. plus i have seen many other members talk about using both together. i'm no expert on the subject of organics and i'm just getting my feet wet but the experts that i go to for the bulk of my advice are the ones who helped me come up with this formula and they grow the healthiest looking plants of anyone i know or have seen on this site. isn't it tru that there are a ton of opinions on the matter and no one is 100% correct?

 

[blueJ]

there's a shit ton of different ways to get the same results yup There's a lot of growers that alternate between feedings, like: synth. feed - organic tea - synth feed - organic tea etc., plants look great.

Also, for example, everyone says to cook your soil for weeks or months, well i don't cook my soil, i mix a ton of amendments in it and at most it gets to sit for one week, sometimes i transplant the day of, plants always look bitchen' and healthy and happy (i don't use blood meal, and very little bone meal though, so that's my excuse i guess lol, oh and i reuse my soil and reammend, so yeah, that's my other excuse)

 

[Wolverine97]

how is that though (not trying to be a dick) but the 2 large growers that i know both use a mixture of organic and synthetic nutes.. plus i have seen many other members talk about using both together. i'm no expert on the subject of organics and i'm just getting my feet wet but the experts that i go to for the bulk of my advice are the ones who helped me come up with this formula and they grow the healthiest looking plants of anyone i know or have seen on this site. isn't it tru that there are a ton of opinions on the matter and no one is 100% correct?

It just depends on how you want to grow... If you want to grow true organic meds with the least hassle possible, I'd choose a true living organic soil. With that, you don't want to be dumping in synthetic nutrients that build up a residue of salts (nutrient salts, but salts nonetheless) which wreak havoc on the microbe population. In a living organic soil, the microbes do all of the work of feeding the plant. When you start applying synthetic nutrients, you're really limiting the effect the soil life has on the plants nutrient delivery. You end up "chasing", that is, you have to keep re-applying the "chem" nutrients because the soil life can no longer adequately feed the plant.

It's not that it won't work, it's just that to me, you should choose one or the other. For myself there are many reasons to choose organic, not the least of which is expense per cycle, and quality of the finished product. The plant stores any excess nutrients that are not used before harvest, and "flushing" cannot remove all synthetic salts from the plant tissue. With organics (the real deal) the plant only takes up what it needs due to symbiotic relationships with the soil microbes. Another major reason to go organic is the fact that our farmland is being decimated by petrol chemical nutrients, then run-off creates dead zones in river delta's etc...

Anyhow, that was a lot longer than I intended. Do what works for you, but think about the far reaching effects of your choices as well...

 

[ScoobyDoobyDoo]

there's a shit ton of different ways to get the same results yup There's a lot of growers that alternate between feedings, like: synth. feed - organic tea - synth feed - organic tea etc., plants look great.

Also, for example, everyone says to cook your soil for weeks or months, well i don't cook my soil, i mix a ton of amendments in it and at most it gets to sit for one week, sometimes i transplant the day of, plants always look bitchen' and healthy and happy (i don't use blood meal, and very little bone meal though, so that's my excuse i guess lol, oh and i reuse my soil and reammend, so yeah, that's my other excuse)

i agree. been using organic soils and alaska humisoil teas with synthetic nutes for a while. absolutely love the results. plenty of guys i know are doing the same thing with other recipes and nutes. gotta do what works for you.

 

[elduece]

Starting to doubt the validity of this "Organics" section. Has no one really ever heard of this stuff? I may have to quit RIU if no one responds. Could be a sign of the lack of actual knowledge here.

That's really funny. I equate that to demanding attention of room full of French head chefs if they have ever heard of Safeway brand croutons. Last thing a French does is BUY croutons.