Quote:
Originally Posted by sandra  Are you using straight tea on all your plants Sharyn or just the orchids? No diluting for all your plants? What differences have you noted? |
Sandra: I use the Our Vital Earth tea and dilute it 50 to 1 ratio. I've experimented with using the tea just once a month. I've also tried 1/4 tsp of orchid fertilizer diluted for the other waterings inbetween - didn't notice a lot of difference whether I used the tea once a month or more frequently. I should clarify one point: In my climate, it's only been necessary for me to water my outdoor orchids about once a week (twice a week during our heat wave). After experimenting, I found using the tea most of the time was the easiest instead of having to remember when I used the tea and when I used fertilizers - get's too confusing after awile. So basically, I'm watering my orchids with the tea once a week for 3 weeks and in plain water flush on the 4th week.
I use the tea on my indoor philodendrums and my peace plant. They seem to love it. The peace plant bloomed three times this spring - first time that ever happened and I've cut back the philodendrum off the floor a couple times. As far as the outdoor flowers are concerned, I have too many hanging baskets and other floral containers to use the tea. It wouldn't be cost effective as those plants need watering about every 2-3 days.
Haven't tried it on the African violets. Those plants are in special african violet pots and are housed at my dad's place in an east window. The only problem that I had with the worm tea was its use on the more delicate flowers, like petunias, impatients and begonias. For some reason, they didn't like it and it showed right away.
One of the superior things that I've noticed since using the worm tea is the insecticidal properties. I've had NO pest problems. Even a bout of scale on a coleus plant near my orchids did not infect the orchids. Growth with the worm tea has been good and the leaves are all very healthy.
So, sorry to be so lengthy here, but I guess we all have to experiment a bit and see what works for each of us. It's also good to check out what others are doing with the worm tea and their results. Good luck with your plants.