There are many negatives to consider. Looking on the web, most websites
about compost tea are selling products or services & are riddled with
myths, exaggerations, & outright lies designed to sell, not to inform.
Anecdotes are used in place of evidence, & there are "it worked for me"
testimonies up the wazoo. What most gardeners know of compost teas they
learned at local nurseries invested in building a clientelle for a
high-profit-margin product (dirty water) the components of which the
nursery cannot actually predict or control, promoted as good for sundry
benefits that are not actually proven. Tjere are many things about Compost
Tea that are potentially very harmful but all the "customer" is told is
it's an organic miracle doing only good.

The majority of claims for Compost Tea have not been validated by any
scientific study. Some few values have been proven, but generally not in
exactly the same way as promoted by nurseries & vendors.

"Lessons" & "workshops" at nurseries are designed to sell you stuff. You
will not be taught very much that is certainly true, & you will not be
able to sort out what is factual or at least possible, from what is
completely fabricated & baseless.

Harmful side effects are possible with Compost Tea. The majority of
harmful side effects are circumvented by using topcoatings of compost &
avoiding compost tea.

If a gardener is ALREADY doing everything properly & has well-balanced
soils that result from proper organic gardening practices, then loading on
compost soups can actually harm plants by duplicating already completed
processes -- it can be like adding fertilizer on top of fertilizer until
plants are cared for to death.

Because vendors want to sell multiple products, they rarely give good
instructions about what Compost Tea applications replace. So the gardner
can be encouraged to just that sorry outcome of "loving your plants to
death."

Top coating mulches provide a healthful slow-release fertilizing & even
low-Nitrogen fertilizers feed the microorganisms (slowly) so that the
microorganisms will produce the required nitrogen. Topcoating composts
feed & encourage healthful microorganisms at exactly the rate the soil
requires & which the soil can sustain long-term. By contrast, dousing a
garden with mulch soups will transiently (potentially dangerously)
overfertilize & may backfire, causing a rapid decline in microorganism
health, injuring plants, & inviting pathogenic microorganisms.

Bacteria (even healthful bacteria) produce waste products toxic to
themselves, including waste products beneficial to plants which by taking
in the nutrients keep the soil balanced for the continued health of the
microorganisms. When concentrated in liquid, this is a little bit like
having a population of a thousand mice in a cage big enough for only a
couple mice. Here again, the attempt to suddenly expand the microorganism
population can have the opposite effect. Slowly (hence safely) restoring
soils that are damaged, or not over-treating soils that are already well
balanced, is not achievable with compost tea.

The science does not support the common claim that these teas function as
organic pesticides. Exaggerated claims to the contrary seem to be based on
the ability to drown aphids with compost tea -- which could be done as
readily with plain water. Compost tea does NOT function as an organic
pesticide & any vendor claiming it does is proving only their own
willingness to lie to you -- who knows about what all else.

A good healthy compost mulch includes essential organic matter for the
garden. Compost teas have very little organic matter hence meets fewer of
a garden's needs.

The microorganisms in organic teas are frequently NOT beneficial, or are
the same microorganisms already in the soil in sufficient quantity.

One of the hugest claims for compost tea is when it is used as a spray,
the healthful microorganisms out-compete pathogens on the surface of plant
leaves. To date, no science quite supports the claim that compost tea
cures or prevents pathogens in the garden. To quote Dr Chalker-Scott, a
horticulturlist at the University of Washington, "In the peer-reviewed
literature...field-tested compost tea reported no difference in disease
control between compost tea & water." In an update on new science, Dr.
Chalker-Scott found that the best "evidence" for pathogen suppression is
to be found only in articles that are not peer-reviewed & so not
creditable. There are, however, some few narrowly definable positive
effects from compost teas & pathogens but not as formulated by or for
gardeners. For instance, some wood barks contain chemical components that
retard human as well as plant diseases; a tea made of the right kind of
bark may have actual medicinal qualities. We can expect this kind of
finding to be misrepresented by vendors as proof that their teas cure or
prevent things that have never been cured or prevented by compost teas.

Further, because the microbes in compost teas are never isolated &
identified, even if one batch did manage to have some microbe in it that
competed with, say, apple scab, the next batch would not have the same
microbial content. This probably explains why one German study found
MARGINAL benifit for apple scab, & a better peer-reviewed study found
none.

Another fatuous & elaborate claim is that compost teas repair anaerobic
soils making them aerobic. Vendors like to toss in a few fancy words so
they sound scientific. The reality is that anaerobic soils are caused by
poor drainage or overwatering, or by compacted soils, or high clay
content. You could put compost teas on them till the cows come home & not
help one bit.

The only proven benefit of compost tea is rapid insertion of
microorganisms into soil, which may or may not be needed by the soil,
which may or may not survive in the soil whose overall conditions are not
likely to be altered by such rapid infusions. All other claims for compost
tea should be regarded as vendor mystifications as yet unproven. Some may
turn out to be true; most will be roundly disproven but the claims will
nevertheless be made by vendors whose only goal is to party ou from your
money.

While unneeded microorganisms may abound in the tea, microorganisms that
might actually have been needed might not be present at all. Indeed in all
likelihood the missing microorganisms will also likely be missing from the
compost usedto start the tea.

The actual chemical properties, pH levels, chemical & microorganism
components, in compost teas, changes dramatically from batch to batch. All
claims of specific values or predictable effects are false. All claims of
specific uses for one "variety" of compost tea vs another "variety" cannot
be substantiated by predictable properties of the teas. Often the
microorganisms will not actually be beneficial.

Compost tea even at its best is inferior to a quality composted mulch of
organic material, both as a fertilizer & for its capacity to sustain a
maximum population of healthful microorganisms.

Compost teas are more likely than compost mulchings to pollute groundwater.

Topcoatings of compost release nutrients that are entirely used in the
garden. Compost teas wash out of the garden & contribute to the
eutrophication of watersheds.

Beneficial microorganisms that live in the organic component (not the
liquid component) of composts are known to inhibit the splash, spread,
leaching, or dispersal of pathogenic microorganisms. Compost teas
FACILITATE this dispersal!

Gardens self-mulch with leaf fall. Horticultural station studies have
shown that gardens never fertilized at all maintain themselves by
self-mulching. Permitting fallen leaves to become leafmold in the garden
does vastly more for a garden than removing them. A garden can permanently
recycle its nutrients if not interferred with. Compost Teas are by
contrast temporary fixes, supposing they even fix anything.

Garden centers brewing teas in your behalf do not as a rule have water
tanks in which to age the water & permit the chlorines to evaporate out of
it before they start their tea batches. They are selling you dirty water
alleged to be chock-full of beneficial microorganisms that probably don't
exist when "brewed" in chlorinated water which kills microorganisms. If
you made it at home you could let the water sit a day or two before mixing
in some compost & starting your tea.

Vendors have learned that by promoting a mythology about compost tea, they
can profit from easily duped gardeners who want to be organic gardeners &
are by & large suckers waiting to be clipped. Generally the nursery owners
have first convinced themselves so that they can feel honest promoting
stuff that is a mix of unproven, disproven, harmful, no better, &
frequently worse than older established methods of properly dressing soils
with organic composts.

Claims of nematode content are nearly always false. As well, nematodes
have to be introduced to soils undver very specific conditions &
temperatures & times of year that have nothing to do with compost tea.

Compost tea vendors like to call themselves "brewers" which is further
mystification of a simple process over which they have inadequate controls
for predictable outcomes. They want you to think what they sell you is as
predictable as the flavor of your favorite brewed beer, when there is no
uniformity of product at any level beyond how much fits in a gallon milk
jug. It is part of the smoke & mirrors with the intent of befuddling you
into doing something you probably wouldn't do if you were permitted to
think too long & too clearly: Don't pay good money for dirty water or
"brewing" equipment when you already have everything you need to do it for
free at home, or which frankly shouldn't be done at all when mulching with
compost does everything compost teas does, but vastly more safely &
better.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

paghat wrote:

There are many negatives to consider. Looking on the web, most websites
about compost tea are selling products or services & are riddled with
myths, exaggerations, & outright lies designed to sell, not to inform.
Anecdotes are used in place of evidence, & there are "it worked for me"
testimonies up the wazoo. What most gardeners know of compost teas they
learned at local nurseries invested in building a clientelle for a
high-profit-margin product (dirty water) the components of which the
nursery cannot actually predict or control, promoted as good for sundry
benefits that are not actually proven. Tjere are many things about Compost
Tea that are potentially very harmful but all the "customer" is told is
it's an organic miracle doing only good.

A whole lot more snipped.......

Amazing! It only takes one, albeit your typical overly wordy and highly
opinionated, posting such as this to negate whatever potentially positive input
I begin to feel you may share with this group. While you are very quick to jump
on the 'down with the evil, money grubbing, environmentally raping and
pillaging Monsanto' bandwagon, you hasten to adopt the self-same righteous
indignation regarding the benefits of compost tea as those you castigate with
respect to the safety of glyphosate/ RoundUp - despite mounting evidence to the
contrary (and yes, that includes a LOT of closely controlled and monitored
ongoing scientific trials), you dismiss it as a lot of snake oil hocus-pocus
and yet another wild conspiracy by shoddy nursery owners to dupe the
unsuspecting customer.

What you don't know about compost tea is startling and you obviously have not
bothered with any firsthand practical experience to reflect on (no way those
sneaky nurseryowners are gonna pull any fast ones on you!). And you continue to
demonstrate a remarkable lack of knowledge regarding the retail nursery
industry in general.

Your garden is obviously stunning and your plant knowledge impressive, but your
understanding of the professional aspects of horticulture leave a lot to be
desired. Stick to the plants, ratgirl. It's what you know best.

No group hug necessary this evening, Tom :-)

pam - gardengal

Pam wrote:
While you are very quick to jump
on the 'down with the evil, money grubbing, environmentally raping and
pillaging Monsanto' bandwagon, you hasten to adopt the self-same righteous
indignation regarding the benefits of compost tea as those you castigate with
respect to the safety of glyphosate/ RoundUp - despite mounting evidence to the
contrary (and yes, that includes a LOT of closely controlled and monitored
ongoing scientific trials), you dismiss it as a lot of snake oil hocus-pocus
and yet another wild conspiracy by shoddy nursery owners to dupe the
unsuspecting customer.


I thought it was refreshing to see a criticism of "organic" hoakum for a
change, instead of the usual manifesto about the evils of Monsanto, Ortho,
and Scotts. Ratgirl moves up a notch or two in my opinion -- not that my
opinion is worth much...

Just be very careful and somewhat skeptical when the experts giving an
opinion about something are the same folks trying to sell it to you.

As seen on TV,
Bob

In article , Pam wrote:

paghat wrote:

There are many negatives to consider. Looking on the web, most websites
about compost tea are selling products or services & are riddled with
myths, exaggerations, & outright lies designed to sell, not to inform.
Anecdotes are used in place of evidence, & there are "it worked for me"
testimonies up the wazoo. What most gardeners know of compost teas they
learned at local nurseries invested in building a clientelle for a
high-profit-margin product (dirty water) the components of which the
nursery cannot actually predict or control, promoted as good for sundry
benefits that are not actually proven. Tjere are many things about Compost
Tea that are potentially very harmful but all the "customer" is told is
it's an organic miracle doing only good.

A whole lot more snipped.......

Amazing! It only takes one, albeit your typical overly wordy and highly
opinionated, posting such as this to negate whatever potentially
positive input
I begin to feel you may share with this group. While you are very quick
to jump
on the 'down with the evil, money grubbing, environmentally raping and
pillaging Monsanto' bandwagon, you hasten to adopt the self-same righteous
indignation regarding the benefits of compost tea as those you castigate with
respect to the safety of glyphosate/ RoundUp - despite mounting evidence
to the
contrary (and yes, that includes a LOT of closely controlled and monitored
ongoing scientific trials), you dismiss it as a lot of snake oil hocus-pocus
and yet another wild conspiracy by shoddy nursery owners to dupe the
unsuspecting customer.

Evils being all relative, toxic chemicals promoted by industry are apt to
be far worse than "organic" options. But anyone who seriously believes
anything labeled "organic" is automatically good is going to make a lot of
bad choices.

What you don't know about compost tea is startling and you obviously have not
bothered with any firsthand practical experience to reflect on (no way those
sneaky nurseryowners are gonna pull any fast ones on you!). And you
continue to
demonstrate a remarkable lack of knowledge regarding the retail nursery
industry in general.

Your garden is obviously stunning and your plant knowledge impressive,
but your
understanding of the professional aspects of horticulture leave a lot to be
desired. Stick to the plants, ratgirl. It's what you know best.

No group hug necessary this evening, Tom :-)

pam - gardengal

Again, to quote horticulturist Dr Chalker-Scott of the University of
Washington, "In the peer-reviewed literature...field-tested compost tea
reported no difference in disease control between compost tea & water."

That's the fact of it! If YOU as a vendor of this stuff never promoted it
for disease control, but only as an organic fertilizer rather less
predictable & inferior to mulching with compost, then good on you, you'd
be the only one. That your angry commentary on my having negated anything
postive I've ever only almost done is very amusing, especially as I posted
only what could be gleaned from the actual science. If I was selling it at
work as you've done, I might feel more disposed to disbelieving the
science & preferring vendors' sales pitches. I won't go so far as you have
gone & suggest all the good you've done is now no longer any good because
you are also in favor of a fraud. I will say that when you decide to be
wrong, you can are quite often VERY wrong.

Because the uninvested, peer-reviewed science just isn't with you on
this. There are a few positive studies for which outcomes could not be
duplicated or which though positive still were inferior to topcoating
composts & other practices. For pathogens, control studies comparing
compost teas to plain waters tend to find them identical in effect. For
impact on microorganisms, the effects are slight & temporary & even when
effective, inferior to compost mulching.

Thousands of COMMERCIALLY motivated enterprises, including your vaunted
nursery trade, are saying LOTS of stuff that is outright false about the
values of teas. They exaggerate what is actually good, they trump up
scientifically unproven additional good, & they leave out useful
information on what is negative & needs to be taken into consideration
before selecting this option. Nursery interests have allowed themselves to
be convinced of many falsehoods in order to retain some self-respect while
duping others as they have been duped. But as the science IS accessible,
this self-deception that preceeds duping others is not a very good excuse
for what is ultimately dishonest & self-serving foremost, helpful to
gardeners as a distant third.

Pop-articles in journals that sell advertising to vendors praise it.
Nurseries that sell it praise it. Thousands of amateur & commercial
websites & bulletin board posts praise it. Alas for all these, the
peer-reviewed science looks for evidence & finds it by & large lacking.
Sadly for the gardening public, science ends up in journals read only by
other scientists, & pop bullshit is all most people tend to see.
Falsehoods begin to look true by weight of repetition -- but the fewer
ctual field studies conducted with controls do still trump the thousands
of promotionals & personal testimonies that deny the science.

It's a fertilizer sure & can be as good as other fertilizers. But effects
on pathogens turn out to be roughly equivalent to regular watering -- &
very good in preventing pathogens on THAT level. The slow chemical action
REQUIRED by both plants & microorganisms are achieved with topcoatings of
composts & natural leafmold, not by dousings with teas. The desire for
short-cut repairs that work instantly is threatening to watersheds; the
teas not retained in soils for long periods of time. You seem even to
dismiss such patently false assertions as teas functioning as pesticides
when they do not, including beneficial nematodes which in reality are not
credibly a part of the nursery preparations, stopping pathogens when they
in reality do so mainly at the level of proper watering, or repairing
anearobic soil problems which teas in no way do even to the slightest
degree. Yet these are standard claims despite that they are completely
baseless.

I don't dismiss that it is a liquid fertilizer which IF properly produced
at the correct temperatures & without chlorinated water & used very
quickly has microorganisms in it. I do maintain that better & more lasting
results can be had by other methods, particularly with organic topcoatings
& proper watering. Multiple peer-reviewed studies show that the teas leach
out of soils too rapidly to be of more than transient benifit, & find
their way into watersheds as would not occur with compost topcoatings.

There are two overviews by Chalker-Scott which compare the pop beliefs &
promotional claims versus the peer-reviewed science. And your attitude
complete with your catchy advertising jargon like "decanting a brew" when
describing dumping some manure-water out of plastic milk jug -- just don't
hold up as all that truthful or real. You represent the vested interests
of the nursery trade & so favor vendor-generated beliefs & editorializings
over the science, holding on to profitable delusions. Chalker-Scott
herself is an organics advocate -- like myself she has found ways of
maintaining the fertility of her soils without much fertilizer at all
(though she uses some bone meal & I will not dump rendering-plant products
in my garden), & is an activist against commercial pesticides, always
advocating natural alternatives (but alarmed when she sees vendors
claiming compost teas are one of the pesticide alternatives).

Certainly she is not invested in savaging a profitable fad on the basis of
it being a good idea she wants to ruin for no reason at all. Compost tea
is a mediocre-to-good idea with some positives & some equally real
negatives & a vast number of completely false claims for it that the
science does not substantiate. That's what she has stated in the context
of the extant science; it's what I find vastly more creditable than your
vendor-perspective that Paghat is a menace to gardening for dissing a
profitable product.

Besides her two overviews of the actual field-tested, peer-reviewed, &
published science world-wide (such as does not find compost teas the
end-all vendors claim), she has also been involved in original studies at
the University Arboretum testing compost tea against controls measuring
the incidents of pathogens -- & found compost tea sometimes useful for a
few things though never superior to surface composting, frequently
inferior to surface composting, & for fungal pathogens no more beneficial
than plain water (which is beneficial). She also outlines the reasons for
how each batch has radically different mixes of microorganisms so that
fully controlled studies are difficult, outcomes uneven, findings
unduplicable -- so when vendors promise specific outcomes & values &
specific values for various "brews" they are in essence promising that
which is a practical impossibility.

The main thing I keep in mind is that comparative studies found that
microorganism activity is best sustained by mulching with compost & proper
watering, or even mulching with leaf-fall, & compost teas do not equal
these other practices in effectiveness for sustaining a healthful
microorganism population & correct level of nitrogen.

So yes, absolutely, I do placed the field studies of uninvested
horticultural stations heads & tails above the vested interests of
vendors. This is potentially a cash cow, turning cowshit into dollars, &
it's going to be very hard on the industry to let go of the big lie that
compost is an intermediary product on the way to being tea, that teas
brewed by nurseries are worth blowing one's money on to get something
better than can be made at home for free,

There are ten ways of doing most things in a garden. Teas have a place in
the larger canon, but a place rather less vaunted than vendors require. If
people continue to be flimflammed into believing its as great as you, a
vendor, want them to believe, then its more limited but real value is
diminished by overuse for all the wrong reasons.

For Chalker-Scott the "bottom line" was this: Be reluctant to add
chemicals to your garden even if they are "organic," including compost
tea. No one really expects the nursery trade to be quite that honest &
tell people to "Go home & think about it, you probably don't actually need
what we're selling." But consumers had damn well better be aware before
hand that what they tell you -- that it retards pathogens, is an organic
pesticide, & all the others extravagant fibbery, "You definitely need our
product" is just one more thing that ain't necessarily so.

Would I ever use compost tea? I have made it, I have used, I will do so
again. But only for what it has been found actually to POSSIBLY benefit. I
have a few still-ungardened areas that I never water because there's
nothing I've planted in those areas, the soil is compacted & poor. Someday
I will enrich the soils, I might "blast" it with a heavy shot of
microorganisms in a homemade aerated tea that'll cost me exactly zero
pennies. But once the soil is charged I will expect good management to
sustain the micororganisms without further need of teas, using instead the
better maintanance of mulched composts & regular watering. If nurseries
only sold this stuff for what it was useful for, they wouldn't even bother
because they wouldn't be able to sell enough to pay for the time. And
they'd end up telling people who might REALLY benefit from it how to do it
easily & without cost.

-paggers

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 04:08:04 GMT, Pam opined:

A whole lot more snipped.......

Amazing! It only takes one, albeit your typical overly wordy and highly
opinionated, posting such as this to negate whatever potentially positive input
I begin to feel you may share with this group. While you are very quick to jump
on the 'down with the evil, money grubbing, environmentally raping and
pillaging Monsanto' bandwagon, you hasten to adopt the self-same righteous
indignation regarding the benefits of compost tea as those you castigate with
respect to the safety of glyphosate/ RoundUp - despite mounting evidence to the
contrary (and yes, that includes a LOT of closely controlled and monitored
ongoing scientific trials), you dismiss it as a lot of snake oil hocus-pocus
and yet another wild conspiracy by shoddy nursery owners to dupe the
unsuspecting customer.

What you don't know about compost tea is startling and you obviously have not
bothered with any firsthand practical experience to reflect on (no way those
sneaky nurseryowners are gonna pull any fast ones on you!). And you continue to
demonstrate a remarkable lack of knowledge regarding the retail nursery
industry in general.

Your garden is obviously stunning and your plant knowledge impressive, but your
understanding of the professional aspects of horticulture leave a lot to be
desired. Stick to the plants, ratgirl. It's what you know best.

No group hug necessary this evening, Tom :-)

pam - gardengal

I've come to the conclusion when this newsgroup is relatively quiet, someone
will post something verbose and ignorant to get the hackles up with people who
know the information, and who actually are professionals in the horticulture
industry. Anyone who owns a garden center knows that it's not a big money
industry. There is a lot of loss and not much money left. High end garden
centers do make money, but by a long shot not the way it's being described in
the hugely snipped troll. I guess it got too quiet in here.

v

Aerobically brewed soul soup or compost tea has never been shown to have
even slight or occasional value in suppressing plant pathogens. There is
limited evidence of unpredictable benefits from non-aerobic teas. So OF
COURSE what vendors have to sell as a pathogen-suppressor is the aerobic
tea. Why do they do this when their claims might at least be justifiable
as exaggerations if it was NOT aerobically brewed?? The reason they select
the unproven is because it requires more equipment. You have to give them
more money to follow their advice!

DISHONESTY OF www.SOULSOUPS.com:

www.soilsoups.com says: "Aerobically brewed SoilSoup is alive...whether
you are inoculating weed free potting soil, conditioning your garden soil
or foliar spraying for disease control, this simple to use system gets you
started." Yes, this outfit will sell you everything you need in their
SoulSoup Brewing System so you too can "innoculate" soils or make foliar
sprays for disease control that no study has indicated works even
occasionally for this purpose.

SoulSoup pructs are available in many nurseries.

Trust no one from SoilSoup or any vendor pitching SoilSoup systems. They
are trained liars.

DISHONESTY OF www.AMERICANPLANTFOOD.com

"This concentrated liquid compost extract is the best way we've found to
feed the soil. The microorganisms are responsible for producing robust
plants, more resistant to insect and disease problems."

It is "a" way to fertilize -- the best way, no. No science supports the
claim that aerobic soil soups retard plant diseases. And they are NOT
pesticidal. So three lies in two sentences. Trust no one from American
Plant Food. They sell not only teas & equipment, but also the seminars to
spread precisely such lies & exaggerations as exerpted above.All these
companies require seminars as seminars are ideal for spreading "training"
gardeners to be easy marks believing sundry baseless claims. Be cynical of
any vendor repeating American Plant Food fabrications & exaggerations or
which are proud to provide flimflam seminars.

From ANN LOVEJOY, voice of nursery ownership, pitching the SoilSoup
company's brewing equipment which she never mentions she sells for a
living:

"This aerobically brewed tea can help reduce or eliminate pests and
diseases....can protect foliage from many diseases, is the greatest
invention since compost, and that goes back thousands of years. The
miracle machine that makes this possible is a small, sturdy bioblender
that pumps oxygen into compost tea. I predict that within five years there
will be a tea brewer in every nursery, if not every garage."

Truth: The science indicates that NON-aerobically brewed tea MIGHT have
SLIGHT benefits in defense against some pathogens for some plants, but
aerobically brewed teas have never been shown to have these benefits.
This is why Ann has to call it a "Miracle" since it certainly isn't
science, & hyperbole about it being the greatest advance in gardening
since the middle ages is just badly written ad copy pure & strange. Her
strong focus on aerobically brewed tea for disease control -- one of the
things it is NOT good for -- shows the level of dishonesty deeply
ingrained into these self-deluded experts at retail & wholesale.

Lovejoy is very knowledgeable in many things so I cannot believe she has
failed to read at least the abstracts of the actual published science on
this, such as shows everything she has claimed here for AEROBIC compost
tea to be either false or unproven. Yet she says it because she has
controlling interests in a very nice nursery that sells brewing equipment
and teas. I strongly suspect she has investor interest in the SoulSoup
Company itself, since she never mentions any other company though hundreds
have sprung up as happens when any flimflam is new & easy to get off the
ground. So while on the one hand I'm sure she has DEEPLY convinced herself
she's not lying, & is in general not a bad person, this conviction of the
greatest miracle since halfway to Jesus originates exclusively in her
self-interest as a vendor, is not supported by any science whatsoever,
therefore is not a forgiveable type of accidental misinformation.

HERE'S WHAT LYING ******S HOPE TO GET OUT OF YOU JUST FOR STARTERS:

$300 for a SoilSoup bioblender kit. No tub; just the part that aerates. A
fifty-cent aeration stone from a petshop would do the same job, if the job
even needed to be done.

$25 for Bottle of nutrient solution, which you'll have to buy regularly,
making you a captive client (except not really -- you'll use this piece of
shit "system" a few times before it sinks in what a dupe you've been & it
goes in the back of the garage forevermore as impossible to get even
twenty dollars for at your next yardsale alongside the Magic Sandwich
Presser you bought off that tv ad).

$25 Tea bag that hangs on rim of tub. It's not like all you you're such a
loser you might just get by with a hunk of cheese cloth or worn out
underwear, you gotta pay $25 for a special sack you sweet all-day-sucker
you.

$50 "SoilSoup System Plans". You can't even get the instructions without
extravagant fee!

$25. Ten pounds of their compost to make the tea which is just bound to be
WAY better than your crappy good-for-nothin' compost.

You still have to buy a mixing tub, an extension cord, hose hook-up, a
ground fault interupter (or this overpriced cheaply made piece of shit
will electrocute you). If you want it all as a kit complete with the tub
but a smaller motor, that'll be $500, but will exclude the $50 System Plan
since you won't have to put it all together yourself. And even then you
still need to buy some extra stuff! However, if you want the tiny version
that only makes about a paint-bucket's worth at a time, that's still a
whopping $325. So you can spend much more or slightly less, but on average
a typical system to do it at home, lacking everything you need, is $425.

It would be hysterically funny if not so appalling, but once you've
dragged this $325 to $500 pile of shit home, IT CANNOT BE USED
OUTDOORS!!!! Honest to shit! SoilSoup company warns to use it only in a
covered location (which is why Lovejoy announced it should be in every
garage) because the motor housing must never get wet! Holy cripes; & this
warning after another warning to use it only where it's okay for the
entire floor to get soaking wet. Just what we need, the garage floor
soaking wet, standing in our garden shoes in a puddle beside a bubbling
vat of water that can electrocute us if it gets wet.

All this amazing expense for crapola just to make compost tea which will
be inferior to non-aerated, & which you could've made for free in an old
laundry tub or plastic barrel with absolutely no need for special
equipment unsafe to use if wet, magic nutrients, extra special
our-brand-is-best compost, & a happy smile from hornswoggling vendors.

And with that $325 to $500 entry price, you have the reason for all the
lying about protection against disease (just for the biggest of the many
lies), followed up with lies about all the pricy equipment that should be
in every nursery & in every garage. Well, maybe in the back of the garage
never again used. And good leaping jehosaphat what a scam.

I still remember when Magic Light Box Glasses were being sold all over the
city. If you put the light box on your head & adjusted the flashing lights
for specific colors, you could cure any disease, restore perfect vision, &
become increasingly intelligent. But of course that New Age tinfoil hat
style flimflam didn't simultaneously benefit a facilitating industry, the
way the Compost Tea fad is facilitated by nurseries. This one I'm afraid
will be ripping people off for a long time to come.

--paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/

"Pam" wrote in message
...

snip.....

you hasten to adopt the self-same righteous
indignation regarding the benefits of compost tea as those you
castigate with
respect to the safety of glyphosate/ RoundUp - despite mounting
evidence to the
contrary (and yes, that includes a LOT of closely controlled and
monitored
ongoing scientific trials),

....snip....

pam - gardengal


Please supply references to these trials. We don't need 2000 words of
emotive prose from EITHER side - all we need are the facts.

David

"Pam" wrote in message
...

No group hug necessary this evening, Tom :-)

pam - gardengal


Nope, no hope there. I got mine at the Cottage Grove Garden fair from my
fellow ACT users....
Seems there's more and more stupid seed producers and farmers every day. I'm
especially stunned by the ignorance of the 15,000 acre potato producer
lessening his dependence on inorganic fertilizers and chemicals with compost
tea. What dolts! I hope they see the error in their ways and go back to
poisoning our food, or better yet support more GMO research!!!