When it comes to a thriving, healthy garden, one of the quintessential components is a good fertilizer, and homemade compost is one the best things you can make. Using kitchen scraps, garden cuttings and locally sourced organic waste like grass clippings, manure, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc., you can-and should-make your own compost pile for a consistent supply of amazing plant superfood.
There are many different options for how to build a compost pile and what to build it with, so if you’re not already composting, you’ll want to start there.
But if you do already have a successful compost pile, compost tea is a fantastic way to use it to give your plants optimum nutrition, minerals and beneficial microbes.
Compost tea is exactly what it sounds like-except its for plants to drink up, not humans! There are many different methods of brewing it, but it is essentially soaking some finished compost in water for a period of time, and then using the mixture to water your plants.
Obviously, you can just dig your compost into the soil, so why go to the extra effort of brewing a tea? Well, the way plants drink in nutrients is through water, the nutrients bond to water molecules and are absorbed into the roots of the plants, so it just makes it more readily available for them. Also, for certain issues like fungus or blight on the leaves of the plant, there might be benefit in certain cases to being able to spray the compost mixture right onto the plant directly (although you’ll only want to do this if you know it is specifically recommended, compost tea can burn the foliage of some plants).
To make compost tea, there are a lot of different options. Some people prefer to aerate it, with a water tank like the kind used in fish tanks, and others choose to simply let the tea mixture sit and stir once a day. But the basic principle is the same: you take a bucket or large drum, depending on your needs, and place some ready compost in it. You can make a sort-of tea bag, with something like a pillowcase, or just put it in there loose. After about a week or whenever you’d like to use it, you can either strain out the loose compost or simply pour over your plants.
Compost tea is an excellent way to get amazing nutrients and minerals to your plants, and way cheaper than Miracle Gro! Believe me, your plants will thank you-try some today!
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2 thoughts on “Why You Should Be Making Your Own Compost Tea”
Are the books offered on your Advanced Gardening Course and reports actual books and reports or are they downloads? Too many times i have ordered “books and reports only to find I must now print them to have copies in hand if technology is useless due to an MP3 or a like attack
Please advise. Thank you.
Sherry J. Tucker.
GWe provide compost for our vegetable garden and Flores all year long. As an advid recycler it is just as important to save appropriate kitchen food scraps as compost for your garden. I wish everyone realized the importance of these activities to saving our environment!