A True Christmas Story : A Testimony to Just One of the Benefits of Worm Tea
My wife and I have for the past several years gone to North Carolina the weekend after Thanksgiving to get Christmas trees for outselves and several family members. This year was no different we harvested 5 Fraser Firs from a tree farm on November 23, 2002, bundled them up and lashed them to the roof of our SUV. The next day we headed home to Orlando, Florida. The trees were fully exposed to the weather during the 586 mile trip, in fact it snowed a little and the bases of the trees froze as a result of the wind-chill of 70 mph.

The Christmas tree spent the first 2 weeks in the bundle mesh it was placed into at the tree farm. On December 7th about 1 inch was removed from the base of the tree and it was placed in our Christmas tree stand positioned in the corner of our living room.

Over the past year I had used Worm Tea on my house plants and even cut flowers with good success. I started feeding the tree with a 50:1 dilution of water to Worm Tea. I always let the water sit on the window sill for a day to allow for de-chlorination. I was amazed to find that the tree drank nearly 24 oz. of the mixture in the first 24 hours draining the stand. In my previous experience 24 oz. would last for 7-8 days. The tree continued to drink at this rate as long as the Worm Tea was added to the water. With the ornaments and lights in place, the tree never dropped an item. Usually by Christmas morning our trees in the past would drop 3 or 4 ornaments a day like the other 4 trees harvested this year.

After 2 weeks of feedings with the mixture, I was curious about the affect of the Worm Tea dilution. For 3 days the tree got only de-chlorinated water. Day 1 it only drank 8 oz., Day 2 only 4 oz, and Day 3 only a scant 3 oz. I attributed the step down to residual Worm Tea remaining in the tree stand. The next day returning to the 50:1 dilution the tree sucked down 24 oz. and continued to do so until March 15.

On January 10 something caught my eye, new growth was observed near the top of the tree. Light green balls of new needles were forming. Not only was the tree not loosing needles (less than 1/2 cup since placed in the stand) but surviving, thriving and growing, as I would later discover, without any roots.

The tree was moved to the back porch on January 26, well past the normal life expectancy of a Christmas tree, and I continued to water with the 50:1 Worm Tea dilution. The tree overall did well in its new environment, however, it did sustain some damage from the sun. This was a North Carolina Fraser Fir and was not use to our Florida sun where the temperatures between January 26 and March 15 routinely hit the 75 degree Farenheit mark. The side exposed to the sun became dry and brittle losing most of its needles. The side away from the sun continued to thrive with little needle loss and good needle response to "hand-crushing." These needles remained green, soft, and aromatic 3 1/2 months after harvesting.

Finally removed our Christmas tree from its stand on March 15 in preparation of our grand daughter's birthday celebration. The tree still had that fresh pine smell. I fully expected to find a root system of some type but was surprised to observe the base of the tree was not changed from its condition when placed in the tree stand over 3 months ago. --Rick [Central Florida]

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