It was in October. The gallon I just bought at Barton Springs Nursery in Austin was 21.00. I don't see any listed right now on Ebay.
2009 RECIPE
I bought powder there was liquid it was 26 dollars for a gallon
I also use the powder.. I bought it as a supplement for my dogs food LOL.... I make a liquid from that. My dogs get to eat some of the left over solids. They love it.
they told me 1 teaspoon per gallon and 4 oz to make a consintrated gallon
Does it need to sit overnight to dissolve into the water? Does it dissolve?
dissolves right now I buy fertilizer from hydroponic stores pretty much alot of this to where it looks like mud and other stuff too
bump
Hi all :) Tina linked this thread to me and I plan on using one of the variable formulas. I do have a couple of questions though. They may have been answered previously so please forgive any repeats.
1. Does it matter what kind of beer you use. ie: light or dark
2. B12 ~ Is it there a certain concentration that is best? I would probably buy injectable as it is much cheaper than buying the pills.
beers, beer they sell jugs of b12 for plants at lowells
Sugar is food in the plant world, so I would not go light beer but whatever is cheep. Plant B-12 is the cheapest but I have never used it, so do not know how much.to add. I have never use Miracle Grow but some water soluble fertilizers have miners and trace elements that would help the mix but I would never use Bloom Booster on Brugs because it is high in phosphorus and Brugs do not like high phosphorus.
Plant B12? I'll look for that. I didn't know there was a difference.
Bumping for Newbies..
Just used the last of my mix yesterday, making a new batch today. Thanks joeswife for bumping it. :)
GREAT thread! Can't wait to try out some of the recipes here.
I inherited some pump type sprayers (guessing 2 gallon size maybe?) from my MIL.
Since she'd been known to go a little nuts w/RoundUp, does anyone have a good method for cleaning these that I can be assured that stuff is OUT of these sprayers?
A good practice to develop is to have one sprayer per use: for example, 1 for pesticides, 1 for herbicides and 1 for fertilizer. You can never get the chemical used previously out completely. Plastics are porous enough to 'soak' up some of the stuff you've used in the sprayer. Because we use some herbicides on the pastures, I've had to get my Applicator's License and that's one of the first things that is mentioned in class.
bump
Stephanie, did you mean lite beer (low cal) or light (color) vs dark? I pretty much only use leftovers, and we never have dark beer around here, so light is all I've ever used, and it's usually lite too. If you're buying it for plants, though, go for non-lite and definitely go cheap. The plants don't much care about the taste. :)
Someone wrote somewhere else on DG that it was pretty odd that some of use beer on our plants. I have a better answer now about why it works than I did when I posted before. The beer both adds and attracts healthy microorganisms in the soil--acidophilus (did I spell that right) and some others that are known to stimulate plant growth. You can spend a lot of money and time buying those same cultures and growing them yourself and then spreading them on your plants. Or, you can add the stuff to the soil that will attract them--much cheaper and as simple as watering. Beer is one. I also use leftover soda pop and milk. I don't spray with the recipe, so I can't say what benefit there is in spraying, but I'm sure if Ken does it, it's a great idea.
if I used beer here.. it would be asking for slug trouble
Can this be sticky????
I have slugs too, onewish, because I also have a lot of hostas. Not those big ugly two-inch things, but still slugs. The beer is very diluted, and it soaks in and dries pretty fast anyway, so I haven't found that it makes the problem any worse. Actually haven't had many problems at all, but I do know ants and flies are attracted to the sugar. There was this time we spread horticultural-grade molasses (dry) on the lawn, and every fly within 100 miles was in our yard the next day. Fun stuff!
what does the molasses do?.. other than attract them?
I have some comments about what looks to me to be some conflicts in the Recipe ingredients. I'm sure that overall it works fine as a fertilizer because of the massive NPK (and Magnesium/Sulfur in Epsom salts), but I'm wondering if some of you are pouring money down the drain with the more expensive ingredients:
1) I saw that few mentioned pouring this on the soil instead of spraying the leaves. My concern is that the Tea Tree oil is a fungicide working opposite of all the sugar/carbs/yeast ingredients that are there to boost soil microorganisms (mycorrhizae) that speed the uptake of nutrients. "Fungicide" is just a fancy word for poison, but a very mild one that only kills the tiny plants. Fungicide kills mycorrhizae and I think it is less than beneficial for regular frequent use directly in the soil.
2) The beer also seems like money wasted if you are going to use it as a foliar spray only and leave in the Tea Tree oil. Again the fungicide/poison is working against the natural yeast and microorganisms. Perhaps plain table sugar would work as well for much cheaper if you are still using the TT oil.
3) Vitamin B12... did you guys really mean B1? I think B12 would be a waste of money.
4) Vitamin B1. This was originally pushed by the Superthrive guys in the 1940's after one university study showed benefits to plant growth. It was later debunked and the results couldn't be repeated by others, but it has still been one of the most persistent of gardening myths to hang around. Numerous studies have shown that most all growing plants produce more than they need of B1, inside the plant, and the additives are a waste of money.
5) Superthrive. This one is the worst. Basically 2 active ingredients: B1, which I already explained, and the plant hormone (auxin) NAA. NAA works just ok as a rooting hormone. It causes existing plant surface to "differentiate" or convert more existing area to root growth, but it is in a careful *balance* with other plant hormones, and trying to fudge nature has it's price. It actually inhibits plant growth. Anecdotal evidence sometimes see it working miracle resurrections from sickly plants, but that is from the rooting hormone growing some basic roots. You have to stop using it right away or your plant will always be suppressed in top growth. That is why all plant trials using Superthrive show no benefit to using it regularly.
Sorry for being the cranky old spoilsport ;) but would love to see you get even better results; or at least the same results a lot cheaper. :)
- Tom
Tom, thanks for your input. Those are some pretty good concerns. I think I was the one who said I typically use this as a soil drench, rather than a spray. I can't address most of the things you listed because I don't use Superthrive or B1 or tea tree oil. Actually I have used tea tree oil, but only as a spray and only when a fungicide is needed for a particular problem.
Onewish, the molasses is the natural sugar that attracts and feeds the soil microorganisms. It can have very dramatic results on a lawn or flower bed. Just--ahem--be sure to water it in lightly if you buy a bag and spread it dry. :)
very nice.. thanks
it seems I remember folks recommending alfalfa at one time. I found the easiest way to find it was rabbit food. does this sound familiar?
yes.. I often lace the garden with alfalfa.. it works the same as planting a cover crop and tilling it in.. I usually see it here as horse feed.. or the rabbit food
I buy alfalfa as horse feed from the feed&seed stores. Very inexpensive if you buy a big bag and store it. Suggest a metal garbage can if you have critters around.
What is the beer supposed to do?
Good question! Here is a articular posted on Daves
The Facts
This myth has been circulated among gardeners for well over a hundred years. No one is quite sure when or where exactly it got started.
In 1890 Peter Henderson whose was known as "the father of horticulture and ornamental gardening" in the United States recommended that refuse hops from breweries made an excellent fertilizer. This is one possibility of how the beer myth began. hy beer? It was thought that beer offers vitamins and minerals that could benefit plant growth. It was theorized that beer fed beneficial microorganisms that live in the soil.
Beer contains water, carbon dioxide, ethanol (alcohol), a variety of carbohydrates (sugars), and a small amount of proteins. Will these ingredients in the amounts found in beer really benefit in plant growth and development?
An experiment was set up in a university laboratory.
The test was set up with hydroponic conditions (in order to rule out any factors that soil might play in the test). Buddleia (butterfly bush) was the plant of choice for the test. Three different beers were chosen for the test; Michelob Light, Guinness and an alcohol-free beer, Sharps. The beer was added to the water along with a low concentration a liquid fertilizer such as might be found in a garden's soil. Six plants were grown in each type of beer.
The results were very clear, alcohol is bad for plant growth, beer with alcohol is bad for plant growth, and beer without alcohol is bad for plant growth. The plants that were grown without beer and only the same amount of fertilizer did much better than all of the plants grown with beer.
As far as the theory of beer adding yeast to your garden soil is baseless; yeast is readily available to your garden from plenty of other sources.
Pull up a chair, grab an icy mug and treat yourself to a cold beer if you like, but don't waste your money pouring it on the garden.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3715/
Can I 'LIKE" this post please? LOL I save rain water from my barrels and add a bit of turtle poos and buffalo chip powder during winter for watering, everything is fine, I use windex and sometimes tea tree oil and listerine mixed with water for bugs, so far the plants are doing great. My hydroponics tub gets the old fish filter bags dumped into it and I add rain water to that tub and water from there as well. I have tried all versions of mixes listed here.. Beer is now used for beer batter bread. ;)
Debra ~ you are too cute! My beer goes in my tummy. In all honesty I have never tried the beer thing on my plants. Some swear by it. But not me... mine seems to disappear out of the bottle before I can mix it in. LOL
Rhapsody
I do know that mites love brugs. What is the main thing in any of the mixes to address them? The neem oil, or the ammonia or???
I think it's the Neem Oil
I would say to use both. Neem oil is supper thick. You will need to thin it with something... alcohol or ammonia and water to spray it. Neem oil smells a lot like strong garlic be be ready for that.
We have 2 micro-breweries here in my county. I wonder if they'd give me some waste product? Wouldn't that be pretty good?