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harvesting KELP! Going to the beach to harvest, now what?

Cayennemist

Cayennemist

I have convinced my kids that is is cool and fun to collect Kelp! haha

So today we are going to the beach with a Homer Bucket, and we are going to see if we can fill that sucker up!

So what I need to know is:

1. Do i need to rinse/soak off the salt
2. How do I store it?
3. How much do I add to a 7gal AACT
4. Is there anything I should know?

Thanks in advance guys, I may not respond until this afternoon. When I do get home I will post pics I promise.

Here is a little info on the subject for the uninformed.
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Edit:
I have quite an abundance of (EXTRA) seedlings right now, especially Jalapeno. I may try a controlled experiment, with kelp, and without. Sounds like fun.
 
I love it!!
I will add some into my water storage tank using the suggested 250:1 ratio. If it works out I'll soon call it my secrete ingredient.
 
I am not wholly familiar with fresh kelp but I would try to use it as quick as possible (I.e. within a day or so). Also, it wouldn't hurt to wash off the salt first.

I would say that kelp in itself isn't a balanced Fert, and if you are using it in a AACT mix, I would also add in some high quality compost, molasses (unsupported black strap), and myco if you can get your hands on it. If I am not mistaken Kelp is a great source for K and adding the other ingredients will balance out the N and P. as for quantity, tea is extrememly forgiving so I would go with a nice little handful. Just look at you mix and figure it is fresh so it is not concentrated so you may see more Kelp then concentrated myco or kelp extract.

The best thing to do is experiment. If you get a nice head after a day or two of brewing, something went right!

Happy growing!

Matt.
 
hey guys just got home and i got worms for my new bin, and a bucket full of kelp. ill post in a hour or so once we get settled down from a LONG day
 
Ok guys, I am fighting to stay awake. Here is a taste of what will be posted tomorrow:
2012-05-27_21-42-57_687.jpg
 
Ok so...
Last night I got home around 7pm and I was falling apart fast! I promised a pic so I put one up and passed oUT!
This morning I emptied the water out and added some new water to try to keep it some what fresh until I find out what to do. This afternoon when I got home
I mixed about a Half Gal. of the dark liquid in to my 7gal. AACT. Within hours I had a FROTH! Did a little foliar feeding with it tonight on my tomatoes as a little test run.

Here is that same piece from last night.
2012-05-28_23-42-56_448.jpg

Im going to dry some like this so I can just break off a piece now and then and trow it in the AACT between feedings.

Most of it is fomenting in a 7gal. bucket. What I dont use within the next week or so, will go in to compost.
2012-05-28_23-43-38_640.jpg


Here is that first batch I used to Feed my tomatoes and pumpkin patch.
2012-05-28_11-43-35_831.jpg


At this time I only have 1 thing with myco's in it, so I through some of this in... ~1/8 a cup to 7gal
2012-05-28_23-46-46_423.jpg

It says Mycorrbizal Fungi so I said "why not give it a shot?"
2012-05-28_23-47-27_303.jpg
 
I find that seaweed takes a LOOONNNGGGG time to decompse enough to be beneficial to the plants. For example...all of the seaweed that I harvested and put into my vegetable beds in the fall is still not fully decomposed. Rinsing it off will lower the salt content...you can always just leave it out in a rain storm, too. I keep thinking about buying a blender at a yard sale and grinding it up to speed up the process.
 
Al-from-Chile said:
Do those have to be a specific type of seaweed or do they all have beneficiary properties?

Thx
Click to expand...
Sorry don't have a link handy but if you google it, you'll see all the beneficiary properties for the various types. Also there are sea plants that work just as well that I've read about but again I didn't save the link/links. Seaweed makes great tea/emulsion for foliar feeding, takes at least 30+ days for it to break down or you can buy some in the market, I make my own with sargassum seaweed and love how perky it makes my plants within the hour after spraying. I may start making my own fish emulsion one day but the seaweed I gather already has little fish, crabs and other small marine animals in it so that adds to the one I currently make. From what I read if you make your own with fish it'll be better than if you buy cause there are trace elements that you won't remove VS the mfg one's must to improve shelf life. Hope this helps.

Edit: BTW/FWI this thread is about Kelp and since we do not have Kelp on the east coast I've not read up enough on it.
 
I would be extremely leery of adding fresh anything to seedlings/plants unless I knew just about everything there was to know about it. Let me rephrase that, I wouldn't dare add anything fresh to my plants without knowing exactly what it would do. You're basically saying you've seen/heard of people using kelp products as fertilizer so the fresh, whole thing must be super healthy for your plants. Do you happen to know what pathogens live on kelp? Good or bad ones? If using it happens to attract any specific bugs?

Why not? That's a great reason to add fertilizers to plants. Is the fertilizer for fruits good for veges? Most fruits prefer their fertilizers to be acidic, peppers on the other hand prefer a neutral pH.
 
patrick said:
I would be extremely leery of adding fresh anything to seedlings/plants unless I knew just about everything there was to know about it. Let me rephrase that, I wouldn't dare add anything fresh to my plants without knowing exactly what it would do. You're basically saying you've seen/heard of people using kelp products as fertilizer so the fresh, whole thing must be super healthy for your plants. Do you happen to know what pathogens live on kelp? Good or bad ones? If using it happens to attract any specific bugs?
Click to expand...

Almost a year later... But yeah I feel you, I have seen too many plants damp off. Thats why the seedlings I tested it on where extras, I thought it said that in the first post? Anywho, the plants that got the Tea did very well last year. Maybe I got lucky and the fresh stuff didnt have any nasties on it.

Pat I think you have inspired me to dig a little deeper in to the subject. Looks like I will be going to the beach this weekend.
 
Poop I didn't see where you said you had extra volunteers, apologies for that.

I can't tell you how many times I've done something similar, heck I'm still stumbling along blindly today. Luckily I never killed any plants but I can't brag of any successes.

I have some type of virus attacking my plants and I'm searching for relief. There aren't any cures for viral infections yet. My next attempt is a mixture of acetylsalicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin which is made from a natural substance found in the bark of willow trees and dimethyl sulfoxide which is a weak solvent that will allow the acetylsalicylic acid to penetrate the plant cell walls. Crazy stuff but who knows.

Keep researching and best of luck.
 
I have a couple of 7 gals I take and I have my kids fill them up. I make it a game for them, and reward them with ice cream afterward.

We hit up the mission bay last year and filled our buckets up in 10 minutes without anyone confronting us. A few people looked at us weird, like they were thinking we wanted to eat it or something. Most people want it off the beach, so to some it was like we were doing a service.
 
WalkGood said:
Sorry don't have a link handy but if you google it, you'll see all the beneficiary properties for the various types. Also there are sea plants that work just as well that I've read about but again I didn't save the link/links. Seaweed makes great tea/emulsion for foliar feeding, takes at least 30+ days for it to break down or you can buy some in the market, I make my own with sargassum seaweed and love how perky it makes my plants within the hour after spraying. I may start making my own fish emulsion one day but the seaweed I gather already has little fish, crabs and other small marine animals in it so that adds to the one I currently make. From what I read if you make your own with fish it'll be better than if you buy cause there are trace elements that you won't remove VS the mfg one's must to improve shelf life. Hope this helps.

Edit: BTW/FWI this thread is about Kelp and since we do not have Kelp on the east coast I've not read up enough on it.
Click to expand...

I dug into this topic a little deeper, and as a matter of fact what is lying around on most beaches here is .... well KELP (called cochayuyo here).

It is collected and sold dried here ... I recall to have given it to our oldes doughter when she was teething as a baby to bite on it - she actually liked sucking/biting it for its "oceany-salty flavour" (old traditional remedy)


cargamento.jpg



on this pic you can see its spongey-honeycomb structure
cochayuyo1.gif




you also can find it served as a dish (guiso de cochayuyo) ... not exactly my forte ;-)

caldero1.jpg


I was at the seaside a couple of days ago, but failed to bring some of it back (just learned today that it is kelp)


cheers,
al


ps:

a few more local pics of kelp


cochayuyo-seco.jpg




cochayuyo.jpg




spaceout.gif

spaceout.gif
 
found some relevant information concerning the local "bull-kelp"


its in spanish, but pretty self explanatory

each 100g (dry product)

  • 47,5 g. de Fibra.
  • 12 g. de Proteína.
  • 85 kcal.
  • 1.240 mg. de Potasio.
  • 3.450 mg. de Sodio.
  • 1.150 mg. de Calcio.
  • 1.015 mg. de magnesio.
  • 490 mg. de Yodo.
  • 32 mg. de Hierro. (Iron)


cheers, Al
 
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