We are video interviewing our customers to  put on the Bountea website.  Look for the clips soon.  Do you have a Bountea tip or story you would like to share?  Send them in.

Have you checked out the diffuser on the new Bountea Garden Tea Brew Kit ?
If you are an existing Bountea customer and want to swap out your old diffuser ring, we are offering the new diffuser unit for the special price of $18.99.  This is a one time offer for our customers only.  It is not available to the general public.

Roland Evans
Organic Bountea     

• Harvest to Prolong Production -  plants keep producing longer if you remove buds, flowers, fruit and seedpods
• Be ruthless and clear the ground for the next crop
• Collect mulch and compost all left over organic residue
• Organize  your cool weather vegetable seeds – mainly roots and leafy greens
• Pop packets of spinach, lettuce, chard and carrots seeds into into the freezer (stratify) for a week before sowing
• Germinate seeds in damp paper towels and then plant indoors in a cool place
• Prepare the Soil by adding as much organic matter as possible
• Treat soil with Bountea, M3 and Root Web
• Shade, mulch and protect seedlings

With a little planning and some early preparation, you will be harvesting vegetables through Thanksgiving and beyond.  Enjoy.

 
Bountea Compost Tea:  Build up the soil for fall with Bountea, M3 and Root Web.  Use SuperStart when planting or transplanting seeds.

This spring, I needed compost for this rental garden.  I got a  yard of rather rough horse manure compost from a reliable source .  It worked well to lighten the soil – but I needed more.  I heard that our local disposal company was offering cheap compost made from the organic waste they collect curb-side.  I got a small truck load.

The first thing I noticed, it was very black and hydrophobic – it actively shed water and resisted wetting.  Once it did take up moisture, it formed a black sticky pudding.  Still, I mixed it with sand and added it to the soil and used it to augment my potting soil.  At first the plants seemed to do OK.  Then I noticed the lettuce were not growing and the tomatoes had a strange curling leaf.  Bountea helped but did not cure the problem.

Broadleaf herbicides are everywhere: Milestone, Forefront, Pharoah, Banish, Reclaim, Stinger, Hornet, Transline, Confront, Lontrel, Curtail, Millenium Ultra, Tordon, Access, Surmount, Grazon, Pathway.  These chemicals persist in the soil and contaminate grass clippings and manures.  They can even be found in worm castings.  While not supposed to be poisonous to humans (not much!), they are harmful to many plants, particularly tomatoes.After a flurry of emails from our gardening group, I put the pieces together.  The compost probably contained toxic chemical residues from broadleaf herbicides used to control weeds in lawns and fields.

If municipal compost is often polluted, what about the bagged stuff?  Bagged manures, compost and potting soils are sterilized – killing weed seeds and microbial life.  Sterilization does not affect herbicides.  With the ever-increasing use of toxic chemicals, you cannot be certain the products you buy to nurture plants are not contaminated without testing.

The safest option is to make your own compost from your own chemical free waste.  Stick with tried and true high quality organic products such as Bountea.  Test bought in compost on a small portion of the garden.  Then you can keep your plants safe from killer compost!

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