Compost Tea

You may ask, why bother brewing composting tea and not just applying compost to the soil? It is true that adding compost to the soil increases soil carbon and thus is important to soil health. But, comparing compost and compost tea is not really correct. While the direct use of compost provides carbon and nutrients to the soil, compost tea has several unique benefits. These benefits include:

1- Ease of use, and economy.

2- Microbes in composting tea directly penetrate into leaves whereas you cannot apply compost to the foliage. Thus compost tea thus could be more efficient than traditional compost if this is a management goal.

3- Compost tea is composed of a more concentrated microbial community than compost.

4- Composts may not be fully finished and therefore may have high C: N which can harm plants.

Step-by-Step Making of Compost Tea

• Prepare required materials, including high-quality compost, cheesecloth (ornylon mesh), a five-gallon bucket, an aquarium aerator, non-sulfuredmolasses (to enhance bacterial community), and kelp powder (to supportthe fungal community).

• Fill the bucket with water and leave it for at least 24 hours so chlorinedissipates. To make sure the water in the bucket is chlorine-free, you canadd a tablespoon of vitamin C powder and/or run the aerator pump withoutcompost for 1-2 hours.

• Add one teaspoon of Kelp powder and molasses. While you can make yourtea without these components, these provide easy sources of energy to themicrobes and help increase their activity and reproduction.

• Add about 5 cups of the compost to the cheesecloth, use the twisty tie toclose the cheesecloth, and secure it to the bucket handle.

• Let the compost tea brew for about 24 hours in a shady area as the aeratorpump is running.

• Ideally the compost tea should smell fresh and earthy, with no offensiveodor.

• Strain out the compost and immediately apply your tea to the plants and/orthe surrounding soil.

• Clean your compost tea brewing equipment as soon as you can.