Produced by
Patti Moreno
Contributor to:
First Aid for a sick plant: Compost Tea
Compost tea works! I have seen it have miraculous results. Healing sick plants – now that’s my cup of tea!
Hold the sugar. This is NOT your cup of tea. This is tea for your plants. In this video, I am joined by my friend Mark Highland of Organic Mechanics. You may have met Mark before, he’s my soil expert. Mark has spent most of his career researching soil and creating a unique blend of high quality soil that will do wonders for your garden. His unique blend includes compost, worm castings, coconut fiber, pine bark and perlite. The ratios of these ingredients are perfect after a decade of researching and getting it just right. The unique biology of the ingredients creates a sort of “Super food” for your plants. The macro pores produce a poly-saccharine that is sticky to the touch and works hard to retain the moisture in the soil, further nourishing your plants.
Compost tea is easy to make and it can spread a little compost a long way in your garden. Simply put, it is a way to infuse water with beneficial bacteria and nutrients from your compost supply and distribute it in a different format that is nearly 1000 times more potent than the original form and easy for your plants to access.
What you’ll need to brew Compost Tea
- High quality compost (we recommend Organic Mechanics blend)
- A vessel or container for the compost (think tea bag) Here you’ll see that we used a clean piece of burlap cloth that has not been dyed or bleached.
- Rubber bands
- 4 gallons of water
- Aquarium air stone for aerating the water and generating the bubble to create the “brew.”
How to brew the tea
- Take two cups of compost and wrap it in burlap or any other clean, non-dyed or non-bleached breathable fabric
- Secure the “tea bag” with rubber bands
- Soak the tea bag in a 5 gallon bucket of water.
- You can oxygenate the water by pumping air into it with an aquarium air stone or simply circulating it by pushing around the burlap “tea bag.”
- Let the tea steep for at least 2 hours and no more than 24 hours – During this time the beneficial bacteria created through compost will start multiplying.
- Use all your “tea” right away to water and energize your plants or to heal sickly plants. Do not store.
