Oh what a lovely tea party.

draw back the curtain.


The teabag is a little well-brewed.

The weeds have been decomposing anaerobically for a good month and a half now (just a few weeks longer than was recommended by Gardening Australia). The basic process of anaerobic decomposition is that the microorganisms break down biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. This releases the energy into the water rather than the air. It's used a lot to treat waste water and reduce the release of gases and such from landfill. On an industrial scale anaerobic digestion can be a renewable energy source. Methane and carbon dioxide rich biogas can be harvested and burnt to drive a turbine. What we did was a little more lo-fi, not in an air tight vessel or set up to siphon off the gas, but none the less the same process. We are more interested in breaking down the nutrients in the biomass (the weeds) into a form that the plants can use easily. Unfortunately this works too well so the final mix needs to be mixed with more water to dilute it or it will burn the plants.

Black with one.

Anaerobic decomposition happens naturally in mangroves; their leaves break down in the oxygen starved mud; however in that instance the mud is high is salts and so they smell like sulphur (rotten eggs). The "beautiful, brown, sludge" that formed in our weed tea smells like death. The water is releasing many of the gases that have dissolved into it over the weeks.
There was also an abundance of invertebrate life gathered in the pot. Many small compost flies and about six spiders had taken up residence. To these bugs the rotting smells means food or food for their young.

We haven't put it onto the garden just yet. We are making some seeds for Autumn planting and I hope they like tea. The tea bag on the other hand had can go on the compost heap.


Lars comes in for a whiff...



... and feels a little overwhelmed.

1. Weed tea

Sorry to all the stoners out there, this isn't what you thought.
If there is one thing that grows in any garden it's weeds and our garden is no exception. Weed tea is a way of making a high nutrient liquid fertiliser. It takes about 6 weeks but we got the process rolling today. It makes a great fertiliser and renders the weeds compostable.

If you want to do it too you will need a big container, tub or other water-holding vessel, a flowerpot and a big lot of weeds. The flowerpot acts as a big tea bag that can go into the compost after it's all brewed.

We used an old record crate and a flower pot that seemed designed to fit perfectly.

Like this.

Pack the offending plant matter in tightly.

For tufty grass cut off the roots so they can't feed the stems.

Add some water till it's all covered.

Cover the whole lot so no light gets in and let it brew for 5 or 6 weeks.

The other reason I wanted to clear out the weeds was to give our poor lemon tree a chance. It was being choked by cooch grass and so getting little to no water. The leaves were turning a distressing shade of yellow and falling off.

Before

After

Now the tree can get a drink it should start to bounce back. Hopefully the compost and mulch I added will help too. Cass and I got an old bath some time ago and turned it into a garden bed. We put a small aquaduct made of roof tiles from the plug hole to drain the bed and to give more water to the lemon tree.


Watering the bed


Aquaduct

The Gardening Australia Fact Sheet.