Everyone knows that compost is a phenomenal addition to soil which results in better growing gardens. But did you know that you can further benefit your plants by steeping them a pot of Compost Tea?
With the right equipment, Compost Tea is easy to make. Soaking your compost in water extracts beneficial microbes. The resulting nutrient-rich brew can be applied to the soil or sprayed directly onto plant leaves.
Compost Tea acts as both a plant fertilizer and as a disease prevention agent (including root rot disease). Using Compost Tea as a replacement for toxic fungicides, pesticides, and chemical-based fertilizers is a simple and logical way to protect the environment and garden safely.
Category: General
What is compost tea? More specifically, what is the “recipe?” Thanks
Liz,
If you want the recipe just check out my website at Squidoo (www. squidoo. com/easycompost). After all, that is where the image (that is now taken down) came from that they used for this post. I have the image hosted at another website of mine and I found this website in the logs as linking directly to my image.
Anyway, I have directions there on how to make compost tea and the benefits for your garden plus pictures of my personal results using compost tea.
[To the powers that be at the Composters Blog]
Shame on you for hotlinking to my image without asking. If you would have given me proper credit and a link to my site I would have said yes. Now you’re left with - Doh!
Thanks for extolling the virtues of compost tea. I just wrote about our process of making compost tea and other liquid manures in the Caribbean in my blog http://www.caribbeanlandandproperty.com/living_lifestyles_blog/index.php?/archives/95-Liquid-Gold-Making-Using-Organic-Fertilizers..html#extended
Hope you can check it out and leave any other suggestions!
Onelove
Terri
Compost Tea does not just benefit the garden, but is also fabulous for houseplants, outdoor containers and the lawn. Anything that grows, will love compost tea. The Jora Composter makes compost very quickly (every few weeks) year round as it is insulated. Compost Tea for All.
When making a compost tea it is important to keep in mind what your final goal is. Are you wanting to make an organic nutrient that has N-P-K’s (nutrients) or are you wanting to inject to your existing soil food web beneficial microbes (bacteria, fungus, protozoa and nemetodes) to aid in digestion and chelation of existing organic N-P-K’s. Because of the mechanics of soil and its intense buffering capacity organic nutrients take a long time to break down and become available for plants. There is a specific process that takes place deep in the soil that takes very complex molocules that are the organic nutrients and renders them into simple molocules for plants to be able to digest them. In this time it is easy to get “out of balance” chemistry happening in your soil with these complex organic nutrients which results in lock outs (equations that render the organic food unusable that you intended for the plants). For the sake of this post lets assume you are wanting to create beneficial microbes to help break down the existing nutrients and not use the tea for nutrients.
Healthy compost tea that is rich in beneficial bacteria, fungal content, protozoa and nemetodes will help keep your soil eqaution in balance. In my experience a bucket or conatiner with manure in it with water simply set out for a couple of days to weeks can encourage “anaerobic” decomposition. This simply means that there in no oxygen available and can actually encourage bacteria and protozoa that you would typically not want to introduce to your growing environment, escpecially in a greenhouse or closed environment. The healthiest teas you can make are always aerated with some type of air pump and do not contain any manure. Compost made from greenwaste or digested greenwaste from earthworms is typically the best route. Worms do not contain a lot of the pathogens that animals like cows and horses due in their digestive track. They actually contain a lot of the bacteria that you are trying to capture in your tea. You then need a food source to encourage those bacteria to grow in your tea and give you an end result of a liquid rich in the bacteria and fungus from your compost. In essence think of the compost as a growing media for existing beneficial organisms and you are moving them from a one bedroom studio to a 5000sq ft house and the food source is the catalyst.
The food source is another intersting topic, for ease and sake of complexity pure molassas is the most commonly used (NOT regular sugar!!), however there is discussion on this but to get started this is the easiest.
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Base fertilizers can be used on their own as fertilizer