They're just different styles is all, and they both work. FPJ is a food safe KNF recipe whereas the "swamp bucket" style of just dumping plants in water is more in the JADAM realm of thought, which they would call Jadam Liquid Fertilizer, or JLF (so many freaking acronyms I swear).
I do JLF myself, mixing in random weeds, wild grass, clippings from vines and bushes from my garden, old rootballs, stems, and trim after harvest or bubble hash runs; anything really. Toss it in a 5gal with a handful of compost or healthy local soil to diversify those microbes and in a day or two it's bubbling like a witch's brew. A week or two later, it starts to smell like something between a petting zoo and the worst bathroom trip of your life, depending on what plants you put in. And the smell sticks if you get any on you. Let it go a few weeks or months more and it starts getting a strange, almost alluring effervescent smell, what one friend called "like medicine". That's one con to this method for sure, it sure as hell aint food safe, smells like ass, and it can attract bugs if you don't seal the bucket well. But you could say the same things about manure - the plants don't care one bit lol. In fact it's made in a rather similar way when you think about it - anaerobic digestion, only in a bucket instead of a cow.
Everything in my garden loves JLF, whether it's pot, tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries, herbs, trees....their leaves start praying almost immediately whether I spray or fertigate and I've yet to burn anything with it, even at decently high ratios (like a cup or two per gal, where 1-3 tbs per gal is the general recommendation).
I think the Elaine Ingham/"Teaming With Microbes" crowd has a rather unhealthy aversion to anaerobic processes, and they've really contributed to making people think you NEED fancy brewing devices and techniques and a million lectures to succeed when really it's as easy as stuff it in a bucket and forget it. I can't fathom why. Maybe they wouldn't make as much money if it sounded too simple, lol.
