How to make compost tea « The Road To Simplicity

25May/090

How to make compost tea

In keeping with being green, we chose to use compost tea. Unlike commercial fertilizers where they're pretty much ready to use, there's a bit of prepwork that goes with Compost tea. Now, don't let this turn you off. Aside from using all-natural beneficial bacteria, compost tea won't harm the environment.

Materials:

1. Aquarium air pump kit containing : Air pump, Plastic tubings, Air stones. We bought a Petco brand for $25 which has 4 air outlets. We didn't use the air stones from the kit because they were so small. So, we bought the bigger airtones for about $4. We were told that the Petco brand would be sufficient than the more expensive brand. Let's see.

2. 1x 15-gal. bucket or 1x 60-liter bucket.

3. Vermicast or worm poop. You have to be careful when people sell you vermicast and you have to be particular about the details. There are some people who'll sell you horse manure and say it's vermicast.

4. Organic Molasses or Unsulfured Molasses or Brown Sugar

5. Strainer

6. Watering can or backpack sprayer

Instructions:

1. Assemble your aquarium air pump according to the instructions that came with your air pump as shown in Figure 1.

Air pump we bought from Petco

2. Clean thoroughly your 15-gal. container with hot water and baking soda. Then rinse thoroughly. I heard some people use a little bleach with water to clean the container. Haven't tried it but I'm critical about the bleach.

3. Place the Air Stone in the 15-gal. container and fill it with water.

4. Power on the air pump. If you're using chlorinated or tap or metered water, you'll need to aerate the water for 24 hours to de-chlorinate. If you're resourceful and have rain water, you won’t need to aerate the water for 24 hours. This is one of the reasons why we want to install a rain collector so we can use it on making compost tea.

5. After the water is dechlorinated, keep the air pump running and put 1-kilo of vermicast in the container.

6. Put ¼ kilo of organic Molasses or brown sugar or another option is put ¼ cup of fish oil and ¼ cup of liquid seaweed.

7. Stir for 3 to 5 minutes.

8. Continue brewing no more than 24 hours.

IMPORTANT:

More than 24 hours will kill micro-organisms and everything goes to waste.
A successful tea smells sweet, earthy and yeasty.

9. Strain your compost tea into your watering can and start feeding your plants. If you're using a backpack sprayer, strain your compost tea so it will not clog your sprayer. Also, do try to spray the leaves taking care to cover all the plant. Compost Tea is also known to make the plant repel insects.

IMPORTANT:
Use all brewed compost tea and DO NOT save for the next day. Don't throw away the left-over compost, these can be used as fertilizer.