If you would like a nice garden, you will need a bucket of water and some garbage. That simple recipe is all you need to grow healthy, beautiful plants all summer long. The trick to this recipe is that you have to compost your garbage first. Compost and water are the only ingredients you need to create a powerful plant supplement known as compost tea.
Compost in the garden will improve your soil which in turn will reward you with strong plants that are better able to fend off droughts and diseases. Compost improves soil structure and drainage. It can also be used as a fertilizer or as mulch and it enhances the soil’s ability to absorb water.
Compost tea provides the same benefits to a plant as compost but it doesn’t stop there. Not only can compost tea be applied to the soil around plants like regular compost, but it can also be sprayed on the leaves. When sprayed directly on the leaves, it increases the amount of nutrients available to the plant and helps fight foliar diseases. It will even increase the nutritional value and improve the taste of vegetables.
There are many different ways to make compost tea but most recipes can be summarized by saying, if you steep compost in water you get compost tea.
Using rain water is the best way to make compost tea but you can get by with tap water if rain is scarce. Tap water usually contains enough chlorine to kill off all of the beneficial bacteria so it is best to let it sit for a few hours before using it.
The quickest and easiest way to make compost tea is with an old sock filled with compost. Throw it in a bucket and let it sit for a day and you have just made compost tea. There are more complicated ways to make the tea more effective such as using air stones or fish tank bubblers to feed the mixture enough oxygen but the old sock in a bucket method works just as well. You can add molasses to the mix and there are many other secret home recipes. But you will do fine by using a sock filled with compost and a bucket of water. And actually the sock is optional if you have no plans on using a sprayer.
When applying compost tea with a sprayer you have to worry about clogs. Attach some cheese cloth or a piece of panty hose to the sprayer’s intake with some rubber bands und you should be fine.
If you need more than a few buckets of tea, an old fish tank or a plastic storage bin would make a great container for brewing compost tea.
After you have brewed a few batches and are happy with the results why not try aerated compost tea? You will need to feed your mixture a constant supply of oxygen so a bubbler or air stones will be required. You need to keep it aerated so it doesn’t grow any harmful pathogens. Some popular ingredients to add to bubbling compost tea are alfalfa, fish emulsion, powdered seaweed, corn meal, green sand and more. Don’t use manure. Manure tea shouldn’t be used as a foliar spray especially if you are growing vegetables and who wants manure floating around in their bucket anyway.
When you ask a weekend gardener about compost they will tell you it is powerful stuff with a lot of uses. When you ask a serious gardener about compost they will probably tell you that it’s the most important ingredient there is when making compost tea.
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