6. All You Ever Needed to Know About Compost Tea

First and foremost, let me ease your concerns.  I’m not here to give you a recipe a special morning beverage made from compost.  Today you’re going to learn about a special fertilizer that is sure to produce miracles in your garden.  You’ll learn the difference between aerated and non-aerated tea, why non-aerated tea is my weapon of choice, and how you can make it for free.  Listen to find out why compost tea is one of the best ways to give your plants a 100% organic boost! 

Some key highlights from today's episode: 

    •  The easiest way to produce compost tea 
    •  My own personal compost tea recipe 
    •  The benefits of a soil drench vs. spray
    •  Other ingredients you can add to your tea

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the old fashioned on purpose podcast.
Today's episode is all aboutcompost tea and in case you're
new to the idea, this is not atea that you drink.
Rather it's a homemadefertilizer you can use to
nurture your garden plants orflowers.

(00:21):
Stay tuned for all the INS andouts of compost tea and how you
can easily make it yourself.
I'm your host Jill winger.
For the last 10 years I've beenhelping people just like you who
feel a little uninspired bymodern life.
I'll show you how to leave therat race and create the life you

(00:42):
really want by growing your ownfood and mastering old fashioned
skills.
When I initially began myresearch on compost tea, I
figured it'd be a pretty easysubject to tackle.
No big deal.
Cut and dried and boy, oh boy,did I ever underestimate that

(01:04):
one.
It's not a secret or newinformation that compost is one
of the very best fertilizers youcan possibly add to your garden.
And whether you're usingcomposted animal manure or worm
castings or kitchen compost oryou're composting in a pile or

(01:26):
composting in a tumbler in thebackyard.
There are lots of ways you canuse compost to help your garden.
Well compost tea kind of takesit to a different level because
it's basically just a brew madefrom water and finished compost.
Compost tea has a wide range ofbenefits, but basically I like

(01:49):
to just think of it as a naturalalternative to the, shall we
say, miracle growing productssold at the grocery stores in
town.
In short, it will give yourplants a boost, increase the
microbes in your soil, and justhelp everything to be a little

(02:11):
healthier in the process.
Now, it's sounds simple enough,but when you start to look at
all the different ways thatpeople make compost tea, you'll
quickly learn there areapproximately 9 million
different methods, techniques,and recipes.

(02:31):
One of the blessings and alsothe curses of having a tool like
the internet at our disposal.
There is an endless amount ofopinions and ideas floating
around and that's where itbegins to get just a little
confusing.
So I like to organize thingsinto compartments.

(02:51):
That's just how my brain works.
When I was looking at all thiscompost tea info, I sorted the
compost tea recipes into twocategories.
There are aerated andnon-aerated varieties.
Now before your eyes glaze overand you're like, oh my gosh,
she's getting sciency, just hangwith me.
This is really simple.

(03:13):
Aerated compost tea merely usesan electronic device of some
sort, which is usually like abubbler from a fish tank to
force oxygen into the brew.
That's it.
And then non-aerated tea justuses water and compost and some

(03:34):
time to make it happen.
No bubblers or extra oxygenrequired.
There's actually a decent amountof debate.
It always surprises me how muchdebate there are around topics
like these, but there is debateas to which method is superior.

(03:54):
Some folks swear by aeratedcompost tea and they say it's
the only appropriate way to brewit.
While others will argue thatthere is no scientific research
backing up the claims thataerated tea is the way to go.
So I'll leave the ultimatedecision up to you as to what

(04:15):
you'd rather choose.
But after a lot of diggingaround, I have personally
settled on doing non-aeratedcompost tea for my homestead
plants and here's why.
Number one, simplicity alwayswins for me, and I'll definitely

(04:36):
admit there's probably somebenefits to the aerated version,
but I really don't have the timeor the interest in adding
another labor intensive projectto the homestead.
So we have quite a list ofthings we are working on or want
to work on.
And a complicated compost teasetup is really not even going

(04:57):
to make the cut.
Now if you have a lot of extratime or you're really interested
in this or garden is yourprimary passion, then by all
means I encourage you to do someresearch and maybe even become
an aerated tea expert.
But for us at this stage inlife, keeping it simple is my

(05:17):
number one priority.
Now the other reason that Istuck with non-aerated tea is
history.
So it appears that differentcultures have been brewing
various forms of tea forcenturies.
And I mean, I'm assuming theyhad results cause they kept
doing it and I'm also going toassume that they probably didn't

(05:41):
have fish tank motors.
So I'm going to go with the oldfashioned approach on this one.
And then well side note, I thinkpart of my reason for sticking
with non-aerated tea islaziness.
AKA, maybe we call itefficiency.
I like the idea of steepingcompost in a bucket and just

(06:04):
stirring it on occasion ratherthan having to babysit a
complicated system.
So anyway you pick which one youwant to do.
But today I'm going to share mysimple non aerated compost tea
recipe with you right now.
So grab a pen and paper and herewe go.
So what you'll need to start isa five gallon bucket.

(06:29):
Now you could definitely use abucket of a different size, but
I figure why not make a largerquantity because it's pretty
easy to use it up.
You'll also want to get oneshovel scoop of good quality
finished compost.
And as you can see, we are veryspecific and scientific in our
measuring methods here.

(06:51):
I really am not going to getpicky with amounts.
Give a good old scoop of compostin the bucket, maybe fill it,
you know, a quarter full andcall it good.
And then you'll also need somenon-chlorinated water.
If you have chlorinated water,you can, and this is the same
method I use when I'm makingthings like sourdough or

(07:13):
ferments because chlorine is notgood in that application,
either.
You can just leave the water ina bucket or a container
uncovered for a day or two andthe chlorine should evaporate.
Now another option is to userainwater.
If you collect rain water, youcan use that for your compost
tea.
So don't overthink it, but justmake sure you have water without

(07:36):
chlorine in it.
And when I said good qualitycompost, the biggest issue there
is you wanna make sure it'sfinished.
So it's gone through the heatingprocess and it is transformed
from either manure or you know,raw kitchen scraps into crumbly,
beautiful finished compost.
That is key.
You don't want to use just, halfcomposted materials.

(07:59):
That would not be ideal.
All right, so here's yourinstructions.
You're going to dump your shovelof finished compost into the
bucket.
You're gonna fill the bucket therest of the way full with water.
Give it a good old stir and setit aside for about a week.
If you forget about it for acouple of weeks, not saying I

(08:21):
did that, but if you do, it'sgoing to be okay.
Maybe stir it once or twice aday if you're walking by it and
think about it.
But again, if it doesn't happenevery day, it's not the end of
the world.
Now, when you're ready to useyour tea, you want to strain the
compost out and just keep thewater.

(08:44):
Now you can use this finishedtea undiluted.
If it seems very, very strong orvery, very dark, it might be
wise to dilute it a little bitwith water.
You can go with a one-to-oneratio or just go with what feels
right.
Now since this isn't exactly avery specific scientific method,
I would recommend that beforeyou go crazy spraying your tea

(09:05):
all over everything you'regrowing, that you do a little
bit of testing first just tomake sure it's not going to
cause issues with your plants.
I've never had issues, but youknow, different variables come
into play here.
So put your compost tea in asprayer.
I like to have one of thoseweeds sprayers.
You know you're supposed to putchemicals in them, but I usually

(09:27):
put everything but chemicals.
Then I use them all over thehomestead.
Put your finished tea, whetherit's diluted or not in a
sprayer.
And then you can just, you know,spray it on a few plants that
aren't going to be superimportant if they have issues
from the tea and just watch themfor a few days.
As long as they're not havingissues, then you should be good

(09:48):
to go.
Now some folks like to spraytheir compost tea on the leaves.
You can totally do that.
I prefer just to use, mine asmore of a soil drench.
So just to pour a little bit ofthe tea around the roots of my
plant in a circular motion andallow it to soak in.

(10:09):
And if you are applying your teato a very large area of your
garden, you can continue todilute it with water to make it
stretch just a little bit more.
So it's really that easy.
And what I figure is it's reallycheap if not free to make, if
you have compost of some sort onyour homestead and if anything,

(10:29):
it's definitely not going tocause harm or it shouldn't cause
harm.
It's just gonna add moregoodness to your soil.
So considering it doesn't take alot of time, compost tea is a
really easy way you can giveyour organic plants a boost.
Now a few little notes herebefore we wrap up.
Some sources that I've read andresearched, warn against using

(10:52):
compost tea because they'reworried it could harbored
dangerous bacteria likesalmonella or ecoli, since these
are organisms that can live inmanure.
And in my opinion, I'm not superworried about this because I'm
using finished compost but Iwould not use raw manure or

(11:13):
uncomposted manure for thiscompost tea recipe for that
reason.
So use good finished compostthat should have technically
killed off any organisms in themanure or the compost.
I've seen a few otherrecommendations, warning folks
not to spray the leaves of aplant if you plan to consume it

(11:35):
or it's produce or fruit rightaway.
And I would tend to agree causeyou know it is compost.
I probably don't want to eat ordrink compost tea.
But as long as you're washingyour fruits and vegetables
before they're eaten.
And honestly, that's why I liketo use my tea as a drench

(11:55):
instead of a spray.
Um, it's just not something I'msuper concerned about, but in
the end, it's ultimately yourchoice so you can decide what
you want to do.
You can also add otheringredients to your compost tea.
Some people add kelp or molassesor you know, depending on where

(12:15):
your soil might be depleted.
If you get soil testing done,you can add some natural options
in there to give it an extraboost.
I haven't really found thatnecessary.
Our soil tests haven't revealedanything as far as being a big
deficit.
So I just keep it simple and gowith straight compost.

(12:37):
So all in all, it's simple, it'seffective and it's kind of fun
to make compost tea for yourgarden.
If you give it a try, definitelyshoot me a message or an email
and let me know how it goes.
So if you are ready to do thishomesteading thing, compost
teas, gardening chickens, thewhole nine yards, but you're

(12:57):
feeling a little unsure of howto start.
Well, I've got ya covered.
I happened to have an entirelibrary of resources I've
created over the years forhomesteaders, just like you, and
you can get complimentary accessat theprairiehomestead.com/grow.

(13:23):
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you would drop a quick reviewover on iTunes if you enjoyed
this podcast so more people canfind it and bring homesteading
into their lives.
Thanks for listening and I'llcatch up with you next time on
the old fashioned on purposepodcast.