I have recently returned from a seven-month trip in South America. While in Ecuador I lived at a farm that employed an agricultural engineer. He was very calm and friendly and would answer many questions related to the farm. I was curious about a particular liquid that the farmers used to spray on mature plants, new sprouts, and freshly tilled soil. Since this was an organic permaculture farm, I was certain that they were not using industrial pesticides or fertilizers. The engineer told me that the mixture was a type of specially prepared compost tea. The preparation uses mixtures of nitrogen rich plants (legumes) and animal wastes to generate a pro-biotic organic fertilizer.

What this means is that we can expect an addition of useful nutrients and acids to the soil, but we also introduce helpful and healthy strains of bacteria. The bacteria provide the utility of adding diverse life to the soil and defending the plant from harmful competitive strains of bacteria. In short, a symbiotic relationship.

I was inspired with this information and feel that this special style of tea is worthy of a demonstration at the Vancouver Energy Farm at UBC. Yeast, molasses, sawdust, and rock phosphate powder have been gathered along with 25KG of clover. As to be expected at an organic style farm, there is an abundant amount of pre-composted material which is also going into the pro-biotic brew. The demonstration mixture will be brewed in a 55 gallon plastic barrel. After the process has finshed brewing, the final mixture will be applied at roughly a 10:1 ratio of ten parts water to one part tea.

Sawdust, Molasses, Clover, Urine, Yeast, Rock Phosphate Powder, Humus

Yeast, Molasses, Urine, Rock Phosphate

Clover for Probiotic Tea