Making Compost Tea

If you compost correctly - that is, make sure that your compost has enough oxygen and is turned regularly - your compost will grow large amounts of beneficial fungi and bacteria, and most pests that cause plant disease will die off. So, if you extend these benefits to a tea, you have a power spray for your plants that fights off bad bacteria, nourish the plant, and brings back the good bacteria that may have been destroyed by chemicals use in the past.

In order to make compost tea, you first need good, quality compost. This is the compost from your heap or bin that has already gone through a few rotations, and has been allowed to cool down.

Alternatively, you can use compost that has been created by worms for your tea. If you brew tea from compost that has worms in it, that tea will contain a lot of humic acid, a substance that is beneficial in particular for trees, shrubs, and perennials.

Compost tea is best made with a compost that is rich in bacteria. In order for this to happen, you need to use a lot of green materials (more than brown materials) in your heap. Think vegetable scraps from your kitchen, coffee grounds, and shredded newspapers.

Once you have a bacteria-rich pile, make sure that you have enough to make tea, usually around a cubic yard. Also make sure that the pile is moist, not wet or dry. Put your kitchen waste in the middle of the pile to build heat, and balance the pile with shredded newspapers. Turn the pile when it gets hot enough, around 150 degrees; measure this with a thermometer. The center of the pile will cool after you turn in, and after about two months, your compost will be ready to make into tea.

Now, you can either make your own compost tea maker, or buy one. You can make your own with air tubing, bubblers, a pump, and a gang valve. Get a stick to stir the compost tea, and get something like an old tea towel or stocking to strain it. Note that the tea needs to be given oxygen all the time, otherwise it might actually harm your plants.

The tea needs to brew for 2-3 days, then it absolutely must be applied to your plants. Also, if you're using tap water, use the bubblers in your water for 50 minutes to get rid of potentially harmful chlorine.

To brew your tea, fill up one of your buckets half-full with water. Use your tubing to create a pump system: three pieces of tubing need to reach from the lip to the bottom of the bucket, and two other pieces connect the pump and the gang valve. Fill up the bucket almost to the top, then get the pump going. Stir in an ounce of molasses and gyrate the stick around to get air bubbles into the mixture. Leave it for three days, then get rid of the pump. Strain the tea into the other bucket, and you're ready to go!

Use it immediately.