Compost Tea
We also know that these beneficial organisms live and thrive in compost. What we as gardeners are going to do is create an environment where the bacteria and fungi can rapidly multiply. Because they’ll do this very quickly, we’ll then be able to apply them to our yards and gardens in much greater numbers than if we were just adding compost.
Compost Tea & Beneficial Organisms
The bottom line here for gardeners is that if you do not have enough compost to apply to your yard and garden to increase the beneficial microorganisms, make compost tea. This will quickly get their numbers up to levels that will provide all the help you need. Then your job is to add organic matter to the soil (peat moss, leaves, mulches, straw, etc.) to continue feeding the soil microorganisms you’ve just introduced to your garden.
Let me say right at the outset that making compost tea can be as simple or complex as you’d like to make it.
Commercial Users
The big users, the commercial grain farms and organic growers, typically test both the compost and the resulting tea on a regular basis. Their tea-makers, pumps and sprayers are designed to safely transfer fungi (without breaking the fungal lengths up too much) and bacteria to their fields in the fastest and safest possible manner. They have specific recipes for the kinds of bacteria or fungi they want to add to their soils and they treat this process as the scientific one that it is. They work with nature in their fields.
Home User
Now, home gardeners can take the fully scientific approach and get identical (and often amazing results) or you can be a little more relaxed about it and get good results but not miraculous ones. I tend to be relaxed although I do have some good equipment.
To begin with, I use a KIS brewer available from www.simplici-tea.com as my compost tea maker. It produces an aerobic tea (one made with oxygen) rather than an anaerobic tea (one without oxygen) that is quite good and consistently so.
You do want to avoid anaerobic teas because they are essentially stagnant water devoid of most beneficial organisms.
Jury Rigged Compost Tea Maker
You can jury-rig a tea maker from a 5-gallon pail and the most powerful aquarium pump you can find. My KIS brewer’s aerator has a one-half inch output valve and it is very powerful to keep the water roiling along.
Some writers recommend an air stone at the end of the aquarium air line but this produces lots of little bubbles and the objective is to have lots of big bubbles. (Little bubbles break up the fungi while big bubbles don’t.) So simply weight the air line to the bottom of the pail (a big old steel nut works really well). I’d put the steel nut on one end of the air hose and simply throw it into the pail (if you could keep it in the middle that would be ideal but again, this isn’t rocket science.)
So, we have a 5-gallon pail, an air source and a line to the bottom of the pail that is weighted down to stay in the bottom of the pail. Do try to ensure the air line stays in the middle of the pail to provide equal circulation through the pail so there are no “dead” spots in the water.
We add water to the pail. That’s the easy part. However, if you’re using municipal water that has been treated with chlorine you do have to let the water sit for at least 24 hours to outgas – and allow the chlorine to disappear. It helps if you leave the bubbler going for this time to roil up the water. Some municipalities use chlorine that is long-lasting and doesn’t disappear in 24 hours. If yours does this, go to an aquarium store and obtain a water treatment kit to break this chlorine down (you have to do this for fish so it does work for compost tea as well.)
We add food to feed the bacteria and fungi. Now this is where it gets interesting with every compost tea maker having their own recipe and each one developing different amounts or kinds of bacteria and fungi.
Recipe for Compost Tea
A simple recipe for a five gallon pail might include:
~2 tablespoons of molasses because molasses contains several different kinds of sugars
~2 tablespoons of seaweed emulsion or fish emulsion for the micronutrients (they’ll each give slightly different results)
~1 teaspoon of citric acid for the bacteria (you can toss in a couple of 500 mg. Vitamin C tablets instead or several tablespoons of lemon juice)
Note that this isn’t rocket science – you can adjust the amounts depending on your individual circumstances. No, you won’t get the same tea as the pro’s do but you’ll get something you can use and repeating it regularly all summer will give you a wide range of beneficial bacteria to add to your garden soil.
If you have hay, put a few handfuls in as well. Put your compost into a small bag (old socks are ideal) to make a tea bag. If you don’t have old socks (use the odd ones lost in the laundry):-) you can make a mesh bag out of old door screen. The trick is to contain the compost but allow free water flow through it.
Drop the compost/bag into the pail, turn on the aquarium pump and let her rip.
Come back 8 to 12 hours later and you have easy compost tea for your garden. 24 hours is recommended if you can let it brew that long. Do not let it go further than 24 hours or the good bacteria will start to die off and the bad bacteria will begin to grow.
Make the tea outside so that the microorganisms produced are the same ones needed in the garden. Cool weather will require organisms that thrive in cool weather and you can repeat the tea making when the weather warms up to produce organisms for warmer weather.
Use immediately and do not store!
Spreading the compost tea is also very easy in the home garden. You can use either a watering can or a regular backpack sprayer. Do NOT use a sprayer that has been used for chemical sprays. It will kill the bacteria and fungi. Even if you rinse it out, there is generally a residue left that makes it useless for organic spraying. Spray or pour compost tea everywhere. You should get it on plant leaves, on lawns, on vegetable gardens; wherever it lands, the organisms that will survive in those conditions will find food and will begin to do their job (eating the bad guys). In my small garden, I use a watering can. If I were putting it onto a lawn, I’d use a hand or backpack sprayer without the fine nozzle.
You can repeat this monthly or as often as you like. In a big garden with many perennials or fruit trees, I would be spraying compost tea onto plants and firing it all over the garden. A consistent approach to maintaining microorganism levels at their highest levels will produce the healthiest possible garden.
Do you have a question about a Compost Tea?