Compost tea is enjoying a huge surge of popularity in the gardening world. Sometimes called the “liquid gold” of gardening, this nutrient-rich, microbe-rich liquid is hailed as a disease preventative for your garden and a super-boost of nutrition for your soil.
But what is this “tea” in the first place, and why is it such a big deal? Is it possible to safely and effectively make your own, or is buying compost tea a better choice? Read on to get the compost-y scoop on this dark liquid.
What Is Compost Tea?
I would hope that anyone familiar with gardening knows compost pretty well. Amending soil with broken-down organic matter is a practice that dates back to the Romans —Pliny the Elder hasthe earliest-knownwritings on the practice. But I think it is safe to assume that humans around the world have been harnessing and accelerating the process of decomposition for the benefits of their gardens for as long as there have been gardens.
If you know compost, then you are very close to knowing compost tea. Compost tea is a liquid form of compost that is able to be sprayed and evenly distributed. It provides the same crucial microbes, beneficial bacteria, and nutrients that compost does, but in a more mild, easily-accessed form.
Though the basic idea is to steep mature compost in water to extract the goodness, the preparations range in complexity. Though compost tea is not something for humans to drink (gross!), the methods are similar to the array of real tea-brewing methods — from the super-simple non-aerated method (kind of like a Lipton teabag) to the hyper-intensive and highly-controlled aerated setups (more like a complicated tea ceremony).
Aerated vs. Non-Aerated
Aerated? Anaerobic? AACT? What’s with all the terms? Don’t be intimidated by the terminology you may see while researching compost tea.
主动曝气堆肥茶(有时被称为AACT)是一种在有氧环境下制备的茶——这意味着在冲泡茶的水中不断泵入氧气。将这种冒泡的环境与细菌的“发酵剂”和供细菌消费的食物相结合,你就能在短时间内得到一桶对花园友好的微生物。
Alternatively, non-Aerated compost tea is a method of brewing compost tea without the bubbling setup. Just put some mature compost in a bucket, fill it with water, and stir several times a day until it is ready to strain and use.
Overall Brewing Time Requirement
For the Aerated method, you’ll probably only need 24-48 hours, depending on the ambient temperature (or whether or not you’re using a heater). For the Non-Aerated method, you’ll probably need a week.
General Cost
In this humble homesteader’s opinion, the cost of making compost teashouldbe $0, using what you have on hand. If you have a mature compost pile and a bucket, you’re set.
However, when there is a trend, there is a market, and when there is a market, there’s someone who can build a business off of it. Some folks are shelling out as much asfour figures对于堆肥茶冲泡系统,完整的曝气器,加热器,配方发酵剂和预先包装的堆肥接种剂,给你一个一致的产品。
一些公司甚至播下了恐惧的种子,暗示普通园丁自己泡茶是危险的,你最好还是购买他们的产品(或许存在利益冲突?)
The truth is, making compost tea is no more dangerous than making compost itself. The only safeguard you need to keep in mind is to make sure you are usingmaturecompost–particularly if you’re spraying it on your salad garden.
Related Post:How to Start a Compost Business (and Why)
Compost Tea Recipe
My recommendation for the backyard gardener is to not give in to excessive marketing and to go with asimple, homemade setup. If you want to experiment with aerated compost tea, there are lots of instructions online for converting old aquarium parts into a tea-brewing system. And if you want to make non-aerated compost tea, the process couldn’t be simpler.
For this article, I’ll share what is needed for brewing some old-fashioned non-aerated compost tea. I find that aerated compost tea recipes often require unfamiliar or inaccessible ingredients like humic acid, kelp, and fish hydrolase. There’s nothing wrong with these recipes necessarily, but the esoteric nature of the ingredients really doesn’t line up with my homestead’s desire for self-sufficiency.
Materials & Supplies
你会发现,你使用的配方和材料实际上取决于你的园艺哲学。因此,我喜欢的制作堆肥茶的方法是最简单的。因为我的家庭正在欧扎克建立一种离网生活2022世界杯四强亚盘赔率,我们不喜欢依赖从遥远的海洋来的材料,也不喜欢在夜间运行像曝气机或水族馆加热器这样的机器。
So, all you need to brew a 5-gallon bucket of compost tea are the following:
- 5 gallons of non-chlorinated water. Rainwater is best! City water is chlorinated, and that will likely kill off the microbes you need. (If you have no other choice but water from the hose, let it sit out for a day or two before brewing).
- 1 big shovel-scoop offinishedcompost (roughly 3-4 cups)
- 5-gallon bucket
- Stick (for stirring)
- A large piece of cheesecloth, threadbare towel, or nylon stocking (for straining the finished product)
Directions
堆肥茶不是一个复杂的过程!
- Fill the bucket with water.
- Mix the finished compost.
- 大力搅拌。
- Stir several times a day for a week.
- Hooray! After a week, you’ve got compost tea!
You’ll know your tea is ready to use when it is a rich, dark, coffee-like color. It should smell good and somewhat yeasty, like wet earth, or maybe the forest after a rainstorm.
如果你的茶闻起来很臭,那可能是你泡的茶不好——可能是搅动不够,或者是细菌定植不正常。在这种情况下,我建议开始新的一批,只是为了确保。
How To Use Compost Tea
一旦你得到了你的啤酒,尽快使用它。未经稀释的,你可以用它来浇灌土壤,浸泡每一株植物根部周围的地面。在这种情况下,你甚至不需要过滤它。一些园丁用茶作为植物叶子上的叶喷雾——人们相信这可以预防疾病。If you want to cover a large area of your garden and think you might not have enough, you can dilute it for spraying.
The best time to use compost tea is in themorning or the evening,在一天的炎热过后。这是一个很好的促进新种植的幼苗,它也是一个很好的每月“款待”你的花园。
Note: Compost tea is as high-quality as the compost it is made from, so the results you get mayvary depending on what you’re using. The truth is, there is no quick-fix for poor soil, so don’t expect compost tea to be a magic bullet — this is something we know very well on our homestead, as we are cutting new gardens into the ground that was abused before we moved here. Good soil takes time. So, I like to think of compost tea as more as a probiotic drink to help maintain and encourage the health of the garden.
Janesays
It smells ok. Have you considered worm tea?