True Living Organics - The Ultimate Guide to Growing All-Natural Marijuana Indoors (2012)

THE KEY TO A PERFECT TLO LIVING TEA
There is no single tea recipe I could give you that would be “the best” because they are
either living teas or they are not living teas. Now there are a couple ways to go about
this, and if you have something like Great White microlife inoculate, you can sprinkle a
very (very) tiny amount of this into the tea, and the bacteria in this product will colonize
the tea. What you are missing in this type of a tea is diversity, including things like
nematodes, protozoa, and others. Fresh water fish aquariums are another great source of
some diverse microlife and a small amount of this type of water can be added before
your tea “brews” as well; as long as the fish are all healthy and chemical free.
Making (or brewing/bubbling as I also call it) living teas for your TLO garden is a snap!
All you need is an inexpensive aquarium air pump (Walmart $13.00 USD) some air
tubing/line, an air stone and a container for bubbling in. This container should be opaque
if possible. You can use teas every other time you water if you want to, as long as they
aren’t too crammed full of liquid nutrients.
The following are a few “don’t do” type pieces of advice:
• Avoid using anything but good pure water when making your teas (chlorine/chloramine
free).
• Don’t go insane using too much kelp/seaweed, and/or molasses because overdosing is
fairly easy.
• Don’t overload with liquid nutrients. This is the number one issue most beginners
have.
• When applying your teas to the plants make sure to stir up the tea between each plant to
ensure even distribution of all the nutrient rich particles; these particles will fall to the
bottom quickly.
• You can bubble your teas 24 hours to 72 hours at least, but don’t make a habit of going
much longer, because as the food runs out many of the good microbeasties will die off.
• Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of your tea bubbling container before using the
tea because bacteria love to stick to things; it is what they do. I love my Betty Crocker
frosting spatula for this job.
The following is a partial list of great tea additions, in per gallon of water amounts:
• ½–1 cup of living earthworm castings
• ¼–½ cup of Big Bloom liquid bloom nutrient by Fox Farm
• 1 tablespoon of kelp meal and/or alfalfa meal
• 1–3 teaspoons of liquid fishy fertilizer (I like Organic Gem, & General Organics
brands here)
• 1 teaspoon dry bird or bat guano (high nitrogen varieties are best)
• 1–3 teaspoons of liquid molasses (all natural and unsulphured)