Brewing compost tea

I have a goal to move towards a more sustainable, permaculture-oriented style of agriculture. This involves using cover crops to add habitat for beneficial insects and to take up space that would otherwise be taken by invasive weeds. Cutting cover crops and laying them in place also adds mulch to the earth which is then broken down slowly and made available to your plants in a year or so. This is how compost is made in the wild. Next time you’re under a tree whose dead leaves haven’t been raked away, brush the leaves away and scratch in the dirt. You’ll notice about a centimeter-thick layer of compost. Underneath that the dirt is hard and probably too hard to scratch with your finger. That’s an easy way to identify where the compost ends and the dirt begins.

I have yet to actually begin experimenting with cover crops. We apply compost to build nutrients in the soil, but watering or spraying with compost tea is an even faster way to get nutrients to your plants. It’s also a way to inoculate your soil with the good microbes that live in the compost.

You can buy a fancy compost tea brewer; you can make one with an aquarium pump; or you can do it with a bucket and a stick. Here are instructions for the hillbilly method:

1. Gather your materials
Bucket
Finished compost (it’s important you use the best compost you can so that it’s full of good microbes).
Fabric for straining paint
Stick for stirring

2. Fill the bucket about a fifth with compost and add water. Leave room at the top so it doesn’t spill when you stir.

3. Stir often! Keep the bucket in a place you’ll walk by often to encourage you to stir it more often. We want to encourage the aerobic microbes to live, which means they need oxygen.

4. After 24 hours your tea is ready to use. Strain it and dilute it 10 to 1.

You’ll want to apply it to your plants right away! Water at the roots while the soil is wet. Alternatively, spray it onto the leaves, getting under the leaves as well. Plants absorb a lot of nutrients through the leaves so this a great way to give them a quick feed.