New Mexico Central

Grow Your Own – Tea Time!

by John Weckerle

Here in the New Mexico Central region, our soils tend to need a little help when we call on them to help us produce food, whether for us or the wildlife.  The soils at NM-Central.com headquarters tend to be relatively low in organic matter, as do the soils where many of our readers live.  This means adding various materials – peat moss, compost, manure, etc., depending on the use – to the soil for some of our plantings.  Now and again, especially for growing trees and veggies, we occasionally throw in another amendment – compost tea.

Compost tea is almost exactly what it sounds like – a brew of compost and water.  Unlike the tea we drink, though, it’s not boiled or heated; air is pumped through the mix to support rapid growth of microorganisms present in the compost.  Compost tea helps us add organic material to the soil and jump-start the microbial ecosystem in the soil, making it more fertile and helping to protect plants from disease.  Many compost tea enthusiasts tout its advantages, including healthier, faster-growing, more productive plants.  While many people make compost tea in large quantities, good results can be realized in smaller scales, right down to the five-gallon bucket range.  Making compost tea is fairly easy, with the bulk of the preparation taking about 10-15 minutes and the equipment costing very little.

Equipment - Air pump, tubing, valve controller, diffusers, and weights

We’ll be brewing our tea today in a basic five-gallon plastic bucket, available at any hardware store.  For equipment, we’ll be using an aquarium air pump, a four-way air valve controller, some tubing (get yourself about 10 feet; that may leave a little extra, but it’s better than running short), four diffusers, four rocks or other weights, and something to attach things to the rocks (we’ve used rubber bands and left-over twist ties salvaged from garden hose packaging).  The first four items are available at any pet store selling aquarium equipment (we got ours some years back at Clark’s in Albuquerque), and the rocks should be easily obtained from a variety of sources.

To begin, you’ll need to cut four lengths of tubing somewhat (but not too much) longer than the height of your bucket.   Insert a diffuser into one end of each tube, and attach the other end of the tubes to the valve controller.

Valve Controller, tubing, and diffusers

We don’t want our diffusers floating around in the bucket; we want them down on the bottom so that as much air as possible is circulating through the water, giving our microorganisms plenty of oxygen for growth and reproduction.  We’ll need to attach them to some sort of weight to hold them down.  Here, we’ve used a rock we found in the yard, and attached the diffuser to the rock with a rubber band.  It’s a good idea to make sure the rubber band passes over the part of the tubing occupied by the stem of the diffuser to avoid kinking the tubing and restricting the air flow.

Weighted diffuser

Gently place the weighted diffusers into the bottom of the bucket, and hang the valve controller from the rim.  Make sure the valves are open to allow air through.  Next, we’ll begin adding material to the bucket, and here’s where some people will be doing things a bit differently than others.  If, like us, you’re using harvested rainwater or non-chlorinated well water for your compost tea, you can add a healthy shovel-full of mature compost to your bucket,  fill it the rest of the way with water, connect the pump to the valve controller with a piece of the remaining tubing, and turn it on.  If you’re on a water system that chlorinates its water, add the water to the bucket first (leaving enough room to add your compost later), connect your pump to the valve controller, and turn it on.  Let it run for a couple of hours to drive off any remaining chlorine, which may interfere with the growth of your microbial culture, and then add your compost.

Almost there...

Once your brew is merrily bubbling, add 1-2 tablespoons of unsulphured molasses to the mix.  This provides a food source for the microbes as they grow and reproduce.  Let the mix bubble for 2-3 days before applying.  You can GENTLY stir the compost on the bottom once or twice a day with an old dowel or a stick to bring more organics, minerals, etc. into solution as the tea brews.

Poetry in motion - the bubbling bucket.

When you’re ready to apply, you can strain the liquid first or not, depending on your use; people adding tea to finished ornamental beds may not want chunks of compost on top of their mulch.  For straining, we use an old campfire grate covered with window screening.  Dilute your compost tea to approximately one part tea to four parts water, and apply.  Some proponents suggest spraying it on the leaves to provide a microbial “barrier” against disease, but we have not experimented much with this method of application.  The left-over solid material can be turned into the garden or returned to the composting system for a repeat performance.

Wednesday, April 20th, 2011, by John Weckerle and is filed under "Gardening ". You can leave a response here. Pinging is currently not allowed.