I would be happy to share what I know regarding Actively Aerated Compost Tea. Clean de-chlorinated water, a healthy and diverse set of microbes contained in some quality compost, plenty of air, (2 lpm per gallon= aerobic) and a microbe (activator) food recipe)

I recently completed the design and construction of my first 30 gallon Brewer.
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Here is a link to additional construction photos.
http://gallery.me.com/tzaddi#100913

As well a link to my friend and mentors page, containing links and information about said Tea.
http://reddingcomposttea.com/

With the new place here in Redding I have been moving slowly, having yet to establish my garden area.

It has been a while since I have participated fully but I will try and keep up. Fell free to contact me directly. :-)
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Awesome Richard.

Great to see you posting again. Good luck w/ the new place.

I enjoyed one of your well-aged, Handrolled beauties a few weeks back. Simply awesome! Thanks again.
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The Compost Tea seams like a great idea!

I got a new composter I made up with a load in there. Maybe I'll try to make some tea with it when its done.
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4 each of Big Boy, Better Boy and Rutger's Tomatoes planted. Looking for Roma plants. Not sure about peppers this year, lots left in the freezer from last year. A double row of Rattlesnake green beans. half a dozen rows of butterpeas. Two short rows of Okra (yes, it's really too early, but they will grow anyway). Eight rows of sweet corn. Two mounds each of straight-neck squash, zucchini and cucumbers (for pickling). Five long rows of purple-hull peas. Four rows of new potatoes, three rows of sweet Texas yellow onions. I have enough space left for the Roma tomatoes, half a dozen pepper plants if I change my mind, and sweet potatoes. I found some romaine lettuce seeds I didn't know I had, so I've planted twelve starter pods, will see what comes up, and if they will have time to mature before it gets too hot. Pictures would be pretty useless right now, just a big plowed patch is all it looks like! I did notice today that the new potatoes are starting to peak above the dirt!

Does the two blueberry plants I planted today qualify?

I'm strongly considering this fall making a raised bed area for asparagus, plus a raised bed for a herb garden. I've had a herb garden in the past, but the oregano eventually took everything over, and I had to kill it all off.
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Well, yesterday I moved stuff in the basement and packed lots away in bins. It's looking good to set up my light stand and start my plants. :-)
I put some nice chemical fertilizer on the lawn the day before yesterday. Yesterday I beat plant feeder stakes in around the tree and our shrubs.
I have day-neutral strawberries growing here beside my desk, I'm going to pick up some composted cow poops today and I already dug out some SAP. I mix that stuff up to amend the holes, I wish I had some rhizomatic bacteria because this dirt is deader than dead. (New house, all the topsoil is actually the basement dirt, except for the stuff Lisa had them bring in, which is equally devoid of life.) I'll be planting these strawberry plants on the hot side of the house, against the foundation. I'm not sure if they'll make it. Time will tell.
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Today was a good day in the garden:
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Great pic Darrell.
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I have decided to go true Square Foot Gardening style this year. I have way too much garden for just us if it is as productive as they say, but I will make up for that by growing the space killing stuff like corn, squash and potatoes. I just have to get my wife into it. She likes to plant all the corn and lettuce and other timed harvest plants at once, so the all are ripening at the same time. 20 pounds of radishes, etc. The trick is to space the plantings out a couple of weeks at a time on those plants. She hates thinning, too. So I have to sneak out there with scissors and do the dirty work of killing innocent baby plants. I have her reading the SFG book now so maybe she'll come around. I haven't done true SFG at his house yet but that is what I planned when I built the boxes. I saw no reason to put in 4x4 boxes since I had the room. This should be interesting as a first attempt here.
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Planted the garden the first or second weekend in March and I have already got a 1gal jug of green beans!

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A good front came through and the wind did some damage on the beans. Lost two plants. Then two more plants were so top heavy, the stems broke off. But still doing good. I have Soy Beans now and probably pick them in a week or so.

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The Cucumbers are taking off up the trellis and the bush type cukes are doing ok.. not as "bushy" as I thought they'd be though.
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The asparagus is comming along ok also.
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Sorry, Wayne, never checked back to the thread. It does take peppers quite a long time. Two weeks is not unusual. The warmer you can keep them, the better (75-80F). By now, you should have plenty of peppers...hopefully.

Planted everything on 4/9. Here's the list:

4 - Celebrity tomatoes (2 to the hill)
4 - Better Boy tomatoes (2 to the hill)
1 - Sweet 100 cherry tomato
4 - crooked neck squash (3 to the hill)
100s of yellow and white onions
1 - monster jalapeno (5+")
3 - jalapeno (2 to the hill)
2 - California bell peppers (2 to the hill)
trellised Marketmore cukes (30-40)
trellised 2-3' asian cukes (15-20)
1 - volunteer cannonball pumpkin from compost this winter

Thanks to Shiala's post a couple years ago, I've quit tilling. I put all my lawnmower clippings and fall leaf grindings in the garden. Have been doing this for 2 years now. The mulch is 3" deep in areas. Keeps the plants moist, the heat down, keeps the walking areas free of mud, and contributes to tons of earthworms. It's also a breeze to weed, when one can manage to poke through all the mulch. Planting is a cinch, as the soil is always moist, dark, and rich. Now I just loan out my tiller.

Also have a 4'x4' compost bin (2' deep in mature compost) that has 10-15 grown potato plants. I tossed old Irish potatoes in it this winter and they've thrived into mature plants. They should be ready to harvest in about a month. Novel idea I'll do again next year!

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Onions have the mulch cleared back to prevent rot:

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My mint and leeks garden:

Spearmint
Kentucky mint
Chocolate mint
Curly Mint

Love those mojitos!

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Varmint guard dog and obsessive fetcher - Fritz

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Here is my row garden:

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What I am most surprised at, is that I am getting anything to grow at all. Florida is mostly sand, and I barely did anything to remedy the soil before hand. I just keep adding compost tea and letting mother nature work.

As you can see, the early straight neck and the crookneck summer squash are already fruiting. I don't know how you guys get such large squash plants, but as long as mine keep producing fruit, I am ok with little green.

Almost all of my sweet peppers died. I don't know why, but I assume it was ants. Oh well, the bell peppers are doing ok right now.

You can't really see, but those pole beans are almost over my 7' high trellis. I am amazed at how those things grow.

My European melons are doing well now. It took a while for them to start growing, but they seem to grow an inch or more everyday now.

I'll have to get some pictures of my soybeans. I am not sure if they are going to survive. The entered the nitrogen fixing stage and seemed to have a hard time coming out of it. So we shall see.
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Great pics guys. I started digging up my soil this weekend and got rained on. Will have to waint until next weekend.
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Well, I decided not to put the plant lights together and not to make plants this year. I just don't have anywhere to plant and have bitten off way more than I can chew for this Spring.
I might stick a few tomato plants in somewhere, but that's it. I'll plant my strawberry plants if it ever stops raining.
Later this summer, after I have the shop built in the garage and have the deck built, I can start building terraced beds in the back yard. Or something.
I'm not even ready to think about it yet, to be honest.
I'm sure gonna miss having a garden. I'll het her in next year, though. :-)
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Cliff, I love those Rutgers tomatoes. Used to plant them from seed years ago and they did very well. They produced huge yields for me and were quite good. I've since run out of seed and got away from raising from seed. Best of luck.
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You better!!! I sent you enough seed to feed Pharaoh's Army!
Always next year...
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I have started all my plants (with the exception of the sweet potatos) from seed. Do most of you all start from a plant or from seed? That might be why mine seems to take a lot longer. Well.. that and the FL heat.
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For years I started my peppers the first week of Feb and my tomatoes in the middle of Feb. Both of these were indoors under bright fluorescents keeping the enclosure around 82-85F. I try to plant around my birthday, 4/9. The plants usually are 4-5" for peppers and 6-8" for tomatoes by then. This year and last I bought both already growing as I didn't have room or time to mess with seed. Everything else is started in the garden (cukes, beans, squash, lettuce, carrots, mustard, etc.). I did plant squash in cups this year to get a few weeks ahead of the planting date. The squash vines borers come around in May and June and usually take my plants out when they're hitting their best. I was lucky last year and made it until mid June. The heat starts weakening them by then anyway. I also buy onion and collards as plants. My fall garden has had various lettuces, broccoli, cauliflower, curly leaf mustard, broad leaf mustard, and brussel sprouts started from seed. Plant lots of them in rows (small seeds) and thin once they start going.
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I added them to the megaton of seed I already had, and the 100 bucks worth I bought this year when I was still gonna plant.
If I can ever get all my seed in one place, I'm gonna put it all in a five gallon bucket with a lid. I'm tired of boxes and bags inside of boxes and bags, it just ain't workin out. :-)
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Mix them all together, cast them to the earth and grow a surprise mystery garden!
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Wayne, here's a couple of shots from a few years ago. I went through a heirloom tomato phase and grew 40-50 different types. I gave them away to folks at work, friends, and had my dad's garden stacked. Heirlooms don't cross-pollinate retaining specific seeds is quite easy. I ran into some really good tomatoes!

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