How to Make Compost Tea
By Jodi Torpey
The beginning of summer is a perfect time for a tea party—a tea party for your plants. Instead of serving Earl Grey or an herbal tea, how about treating your garden by brewing up a batch of compost tea?
What is Compost Tea?
The same rich, crumbly compost that’s used as a soil conditioner can be turned into a tea that plants adore. Compost tea, also called an extract, can be used as both a foliar spray and a soil drench.
When sprayed on a plant’s leaves, compost tea’s soluble nutrients give the plant a healthy boost and also help control diseases like black spot on roses or early blight on tomatoes. As a soil drench, compost tea builds healthy soil by increasing microbial activity and providing soluble nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.
If you’ve been conscientiously composting your kitchen waste and digging it into your garden, you probably have enough compost on hand. If not, you can buy a bag of good quality compost.
By mixing compost with water and allowing it to steep, you can create a beneficial tea loaded with plant nutrients and billions of beneficial bacteria. The process of turning compost into an extract makes the organic matter more effective and improves its usefulness, too.
One of the easiest ways to make compost tea is simply steeping it in water, just like you would an ordinary tea bag. This passive method for brewing compost tea is the same one farmers and organic gardeners have used for hundreds of years.
How To Make Compost Tea
Here’s what you need to get started:
Materials
- Good quality compost
- Old nylon stocking, burlap sack, mesh bag, nylon window screen, old white socks or other loosely woven cloth material.
- Rubber bands or string to tie the bag closed
- 5 gallon bucket
Compost Tea Instructions
1. Fill the tea “bag” with compost using a recipe of 1 part compost to 5 parts water.
2. Fill the bucket with water. If the water is chlorinated, allow the water to sit for 24 hours before adding the compost tea bag.
3. Suspend the compost bag in the bucket of water.
4. Allow the compost to steep in the water for several hours up to several days. Stir the bag in the water daily to aerate the tea. It should have a fresh, earthy smell; if it starts to give off a bad odor, you’ll need to stop and start over. (Don’t use the smelly tea on your plants.)
5. Use the fresh compost tea right away to fill a sprayer or watering can. Strain the liquid through a sieve if you need a finer liquid for the sprayer.
6. Spray plant leaves or water plants (and the lawn) with the tea.
Be sure to keep the used compost from the bag, because it still has some use. Dig it into the garden or add to the compost pile.
