Good, I am glad they are growing. You need to see the ones my Asian friend gave me from Vietnam. It grows like a weed (it did get frozen but I can tell it is coming right back).......The bloom on it (she showed me a picture from her house in Aransas Pass close to her) is about 2 ft' in diameter! A real beauty she is. Remind me to send you a cutting......that is all he gave me and it is getting big.
I use Bayer's advanced tree and shrub on the three I have.........(brugs that is) and I constantly feed them.
The Recipe
OK, went to get the ingredients for the recipe and immediately ran into problems. The only ammonia I could find includes a surfactant. Does it really make a difference? Many sprays include one. Then I couldn't find liquid kelp. So I bought fish emulsion. It's a mild fertilizer, too. But does it have the same ingredients? Does the kelp have any micronutrients? Which?
Ken, I spray every day on the things that are in water or pots and I water inside as needed and Out side with the sparer that you hook up to the hose.
I just use any fish fertilizer. Ammonia that I use is house hold ammonia and it does have surfactant in it. There is so little of it used that I do not think it hurts it BUT I could be wrong. I have used it for 3 years now.
Thank you Bettydee for the help. Tea Tree Oil that is used in such a small amount will not leave a harmful oil on leaves.
OH..I watered and sprayed as I reported earlier... and after few days the change in everyones health is astonishing ..the plants are all looking so much better.. new leaves.. darker ... healthier looking.. I'm a believer..
looked about for plain amonia..and finally found it in the biggrocery... but they only had gallons... I'm set for years.. got the tea tree oil for $6 Oz. had to go buy some low end beer... coulddn't see pouring the good stuff on it.. and Iused my old standard seaweed concentrate..Iallwayswater with... buthtis brew issomuch more active than the sea weed alone...
A highly recomended spray..d .. an.addative for watering... in my book..
thanks Ken...and all for bringing it back up for us who.. with all good intentions... just didn't get around to mixing it up the first 5 - 10 times it was mentioned..
Gordon
Anyone do this with out the beer, FIL is in AA and it would drive him mad to see beer right now - is there something else that I can add in the beers place for a while at least?
Mitch, you have asked a question I have heard on other forums. Go find a bottle of brewers yeast tablets at are you local natural food or pharmacy, should do the trick, you will just need to let them soak a while to dissolve.
Great - that is just what I needed to know!
Gordon, that 1 oz. will last for ever. What is lallways water.
Ken, is 12 drops what you us? I told Maggi (or I think I did) 1 or 2 drops. Do you find that 12 drops works better because I will change my gunk if it does?
jestelleoan.. sorry.. my keyboard is a bit broken on the laptop.. the space bar will work on one side.. sometime.. I do go back over it ..sometimes better than others and space the words out.. ....it will also type into earlier text what I'm writting at the end.. you asked about... what I wrote it was
I always water with my seaweed...I use MaxiCrop.. a seaweed/kelp concentrate..from fresh cold waters off Norway.. it's been a staple of mine for decades.. and has been the base for my addatives..
well another spraying this evening... see it's working ....to get me to really spray...
I read 12 drops... it does impart a pleasant fragrance..
Gordon
!2 drops in the concentrate is not much, once it is watered down. I have a D-mail out to Kell to see if she knows how much Calalily used. I am thinking we need much more but will wait until we get that figured out and will just go with 12 drops for now. As I have said this is a work in progress. For now the main thing is to spray every day and keep these plants comming on. Like Kell says we may need to spray cuttings with one recipe and large plants with another.
We plan on using a hose on sprayer this year on the Brugs that are planted in the ground. For the last few years we have not feed our Brug much at all. Last year we used some left over lawn fertilizer once in the Spring and that was it. We do not have any grass at all our yard is a flower bed. Most years my compost pile is 35' in diameter and 9' tall. We compost like crazy every year so our Brugs grow as well as most without the auditioned cost.
kenboy
Now being new to brugs here I am assuming that this recipe is for making them bloom heavily..............lol .
Pen, it makes them grow from seedling to plants. I have not tried 12 drops. I gave the recipe to Maggi (Ken's wife) as 1 or 2 drops. I do not know if she is using 1 or 2 drops or 12 drops on new seed.
Maggi where are you. Help.
Gorden, thank you and can I buy it any where?
Joan
Well.. I mixed mine up today. I was hesitant only cause of the smell of the ammonia.. go figure.. what a sissy!
Note to self: Don't stand directly over the bottle when pouring ammonia if you don't like the smell... LOL
I used Age Old Kelp I got at the Hydroponics store.. I've been spraying with that and superthrive for a couple of months.. .
The Tea Tree Oil makes everything smell divine! I'm spraying house plants too.. just for the scent! So fresh and outsidzy... LOL
I'm interested in the orange Oil.. I bought some while I was at the Health food store.
The Tea Tree Oil is sold as an antiseptic.. so I smeared a dab on a cut I had from a brug that scratched my wrist..
Kell says 1/4 teaspoon per gallon of water. I will need to refigure how many batches this concentrate will make before I decide how much we will be using. We used 12 drops on the last batch but we are also adding more of the Recipe to every gallon when we spray. We are now putting 6 tablespoons of the Recipe per gallon of water. Next I will need to find out how much of the Recipe there is after it is mixed then how many batches it will make to determine how much Tea Tree Oil we need to put in the Recipe.
We went from 1 tbsp per gallon to 6 because of all the people telling us they made it a lot stronger than we do, so we are trying this out. The ammonia smells strong but that is really the hart of the Recipe, being nitrogen. I'm with ZZ, this gives the hoop-house a mintey smell. The more we look the more we will find these products cheaper. There is an organic supplier near us that sells the molasses for $8. a gallon. Farmers spray it on their hay pastures and swear by it. Who is going to argue with a farmer?
kenboy
Does it matter if it is Light Beer? I'm just going to try the "recipe" for the first time and I will steal a can of my DHes Miller Light if it doesn't matter.
Thanks,
Lucille
Who knows. The only thing I can think of may be that Light Beer has less carbohydrates for the enzymes to work with but I really don't think it's all that important.
I am going to mix it up today then and try it on my Brugs.Beer and Ammonia in the same recipe,what a formula☺☺
Lucille, when I went to the grocery store to get my beer and ammonia, my DH just shook his head. I joked to him- whatever it takes to do the housework!
He was actually kind of jealous that the plants were getting the beer, not him!
Thanks Kenboy, for sharing your recipe!
Cathy
HAHAHA! You Too!!! Cathy, I am trying to sneak the beer behind DH back. He is retiring in 12 days so if I am going to get away with it,it's now or never☺.
My big plan is to sneak the beer, hope for great results, and then confess when I show him what his beer did for the beautiful Brugs. I would only risk life and limb for the sake of the Brugs☺☺
I completely understand, I am hooked too! I bring the "babies" in and out of the house, depending on the weather.
I had good results rooting the cuttings from DonnaB's contest in the bf forum and then I got some more from another Dger. I think out of 28 cuttings, 23, maybe 24, have good roots and are growing well. I transplanted them almost 2 weeks ago.
I think they will do well over the spring and summer and will plan on sharing cuttings from all these yummy little brugs too!
Happy growing!
Cathy
me to i am hooked also
Pensacolagarden, do you use The Recipe?
Not yet I just found out about it but i will now..........lol
I can't wait to see if our "newbies" survive to bloom. In our town, they will be quite a conversation piece as they are rarely grown in our zone.
wow a zone 5 and you still have it outdoors?
No,no. They are in the basement. I mean "when" I take them out this Spring or Early Summer. On one of the threads here they have a pic of what cold weather will do to a Brug,so I won't take any chances with them. It will have to be warm and balmy. I have to drag them up and bury the pots outside in our zone,then every Fall,dig up the pots and haul them back down to the basement for the winter. This will be a first time endeavor for me. I have yet to experience the ☼awesome blooms☼ in person.
Ahhhhhh thought so I just moved from NY and it is so cool to have them outdoors right now. They are growing so well I am so excited to see them everyday they really brighten them up.
Pensa, you would have to rub it in on a day when, even here in south central Texas, the high may reach 47º. Mine are safe in the greenhouse. They would even if my DH would let me raise the thermostat another 5 degrees.
wow that is cold I would have to say sorry about that..............
pensacola,That must be a thrill to have those lovely looking Brugs of yours outside. I love your landscaping and the way you have them sitting there in back of the flat rocks,looking like a million bucks☺you deserve Brug Brag Rights after toughing it out in NY☺
Lucky you are bettydee with that low temp to have a GH to protect your Brugs.
.......sigh....maybe someday I'll finish building my Glass Greenhouse.......
The Recipe:
I just pruchased ingrediants for the recipe. I got the Brewer's Yeast instead of the beer. I am wondering how many tabs I need to use and would I put it in the 12 oz of water to replace the fluid that the 12 oz beer would contain? I am new to this so I hope you don't mind me asking. This thread has been so enjoyable and helpful, I want to do things right. I can't wait to see the results.
Marie
Well,
I went ahead with what I thought best. I was careful not to stand over the bottle when I mixed tha ammonia. But, next time, no matter how cold it is, I will not mix mine in the kitchen, It will be in the garage or outside. My FIL said that it didn't smell like my normal kitchen smells, (thank goodness), and my Sweetheart said it smelled kind of 'pungent'. I had to light candles to cover the smell. I sprayed all my brugs and watered a little. Now I will wait for the magic.
MyRee, I think no one answered your question because no one knows how many Brewer's yeast, everyone uses beer. There is no scientific formula here we are making it up as we go. We have changed ours every batch we made.All I know is that it works.
You guys are a blast! I bought tea tree oil and liquid seaweed this week.
I am sorry not to get back. When I used brewers yeast I used three tablets dissolved in a cup of water. I can remember my father buying brewers yeast and using it on tomato seedlings when I was a kid. Wish I had cared enough to ask why then, he sure knew how to make things grow.
I used to try to be out of sight when he went to the garden, he would always hand me a can and send me out picking potato bugs. Hated that job!
yeah man but i had to bring them all in last night as it got to cold for them to stay outside that is for sure.
OK here we go again. We did not spray for about a month because Maggi was in Fort Worth house sitting and just being busy. The first few times I sprayed we mixed it a little strong. I have taken over as the official sprayer and we have mixed up a large batch so I can get some idea of how many oz we have after all is mixed together. That is the only way to determine how much Tea Tree Oil to use. One thing I have found out about myself, if it isn't easy, it doesn't get done. We have mixed several batches together and have them in an old detergent drum that has a measuring cup. We are now going to go with two T of the concentrate to one gallon of water. This is important to know to determine how Much Tea Tree Oil to use. So here is what we come up with for our latest batch.
2 cups of water
1, 12 oz can of beer
1/2 cup of household ammonia
1 cup of Epsom salt
3 Tablespoons of Tea Tree oil
1/4 cup of molasses
1/2 liquid seaweed ( Kelp )
1/2 cup of garlic spray
1/2 cup of Humate Tea
kenboy
Cup is marked off for just what we use.
Try again.
Well, I used way to little Tea Tree Oil. I do need to go shopping again and get some kelp, garlic spray (where do you get that?) and Humate tea (and where do you get that?), I am learning all the time. I have some tiny yellow bugs on one of my brugs, Can I add something to control bugs also?
So many questions.
I did decide after making my batch of the recipe, that I am going to get measuring spoons and cups just for the garden.