What's your experience w/ using worm tea to fertilize?

[Dawnae]

I've been hesitant to use my worm tea, although my Wriggly Wranch collects it for me. Once I threw a little bit in a potted plant and the thing died. Used some diluted on a house plant and it later developed some sort of root rot and the main stem softened up and sagged. I've heard that 1:6 dilution is best and should help growing plants really take off. What are the finer points of using worm tea? Please dish!

[Kayla]

the stuff that is collecting at the bottom of your wriggly ranch isn't tea its leachate. It's basically just the excess moisture from your bin, if you have any leachate it's actually a sign that your bin is too wet.

[Jason]

The problem is that your Wriggly Wranch 'tea' collects a lot of stuff on its journey and not all of it is the nice plant-friendly microbes that are in finished compost. It's less 'tea' and more 'rotting garbage water' which your plants won't appreciate.

Real compost tea is made exclusively with finished compost and preferably aerated over a 24 hour period to allow for the growth of those good microbes. Even then it's not 'fertilizer' so much as an inoculant, getting the good biology into your plants and soil. The actual nutrients in it will be quite low, compared to a synthetic fertilizer. Of course, that doesn't stop it from being better for your plants than synthetic fertilizer.

But yeah, the short version is don't pour the leachate on your plants. You've already found out why not.

[Josh]

If you collect vermicompost and make an aerated tea from that with an fl oz of molasses, it's spectacular. However, there aren't enough nutrients in AACT(actively aerated compost tea) to sustain a plants needs for weeks at a time. You can add things like kelp, fish emulsion, and calcium to the tea just before it is applied. My tea is made with 1 cup of leaf mould, 1 cup of castings, and 1 fluid ounce of molasses. The molasses is for the microbes to munch on while they're hatching from dormancy. It may be impossible to overdose your plants with tea. It makes a good foliar spray too. The stuff is really what dreams are made of. I believe that AACT should not be diluted, especially not with chlorinated devil water.

[Charlie Little]

Wow! Hey I'm just kinda shocked to finally see some good advice being given concerning leachate. My advice is to adjust your adding bedding/feed moisture so that no more than a couple drops of moisture can be squeezed out when squeezed hard! Kayla is right. Too wet.

[Dawnae]

Thank you, folks! I was taught (or perhaps I misunderstood) at a composting workshop that the juice at the bottom of the Wriggly Wranch is usable as compost tea. I will probably do some more research to find out if it usable in some way or if it should just be disposed of. But your comments got me researching compost tea and I found some helpful info for others with this same question:

http://www.soilfoodweb.com/03_about_us/approach.html
website of Dr. Ingham, very scientific info on compost tea. Doesn’t tell how to make a small amount of homemade tea.

http://perfectperennials.tripod.com/id12.html
good overview of info on compost tea, doesn’t explain how to brew it.

http://www.countryliving.com/outdoor/gardening/compost-tea-0808
quick and dirty how-to on brewing compost tea

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/brewing-compost-tea.aspx
more in-depth description of how to brew compost tea, with photos

Apparently, compost tea can help prevent foliar diseases and can help my vegetables taste better. Other questions this brings up for me are: Does compost tea do anything to protect plants against bugs like leafminers, thrips, aphids, caterpillars, etc.? Is the brewing process as labor-intensive as it looks? Is it worth the time/effort in terms of benefit to your plants? Would be interested in your thoughts..

[Jason]

OK I've never actually brewed or used tea, so take this for what it's worth. I have done a lot of reading on the matter, so I don't think my input is totally worthless...

There is some indication that worm tea does help protect against stuff like aphids, so any sap-feeding insect and even leaf-eaters. A layman's viewpoint is that the VC does something magical that makes the stuff taste worse to the critters. As far as what that is, I think at this point it remains a mystery. Also, whether tea is more effective in this regard than just dressing the plants with VC is another question that I think remains unanswered.

The brewing process takes a long time but it isn't labor intensive. You get an aquarium pump and some airstones, make sure your water is free of chlorine or anything like that (which may involve bubbling it for a few hours beforehand - if your water has chloramine like a lot of treated water these days your best bet is collecting rainwater), put your VC in a mesh bag or old stocking or whatever, suspend it in the water and turn on the air, then let it sit for 24 hours, give or take. You can add a Tbsp of molasses to feed the microbes a while in. When it's done, it should smell nice and have a good brown color. You don't have to actually do much but wait.

As far as it being worth it, that's not for me to answer because I have yet to try it. So far the answer is No for me at least, but I will do it eventually.

Here is a great set of plans and instructions on making your own tea maker. It's preformed well against high priced commercial units. Put the designer Bruce Deuley's name into YouTube's search to find lots of instructional videos as well.

[Dawnae]

Cool. Thank you for the link. I'm going to print that out and take it with me to Petsmart so I know what to buy. This looks like helpful information on putting a brewer together.

[Josh]

In general, compost tea adds life to the soil, beneficial life. Much like lions attacking a weak animal, pests seek out weak plants to feast on. Pest prevention should start with the soil. A healthy soil will give life to a healthy, disease and pest resistant plant. I've kept a cycle of compost tea going since March. I spray anything and everything with it. I've noticed a moderate change on my lawn and a huge change in the number of buds that my Camellia plants put out. The power company sprayed poison on a right-of-way in my back yard. I'm going to spray half of it and see how long it takes for foliage to re-emerge. I can't say enough good things about the stuff. Recent studies have linked cancer with the use of petro-chemical and synthetic fertilizers. Compost tea is like a scab on a wound in the sense that it remediates the soil and breaks down the nastiness that synthetics leave behind. So, I guess you could say that compost tea cures/prevents cancer. Oh, it can cure a smelly dog too.

[Dawnae]

Thanks! I think I'm pretty much sold on the idea of doing compost tea now. I'm growing vegetables and I like the idea that they'll produce more and have better flavor if sprayed with tea. Do you feel like the making of the tea is labor-intensive, though? It seems like it could be. And what do you use to spray it with? I'm not going to be treating a big area. I have vegies and herbs in containers and I have a 4'x4' "square foot garden" with more vegies. Would you use a regular spray bottle from the drugstore to apply it?

[Josh]

There are beneficial fungus mycelium in a good batch of tea. If you use a sprayer to apply it, the mycelial strands may be torn and maimed. However, if you can make your sprayer not project a fine mist, the chances are better that the tasty goodness will make to the soil food web in tact. If your space is small, a bottle sprayer will work but so will arthritis. Then you'll need honey bees;-) It takes me less than 10 min a day to make tea. I leave the drain plug in my John boat to collect rain water to use with the tea. I pull the plug and fill up a bucket w/ rain water. I haul the bucket to my basement and drop an air stone in it, which is attached to an air pump. Then add a handful of worm castings and a handful of leaf mould and a dabble of molasses. I try to make it in the morning and apply the next evening so it has time to "brew". I think it's a good to apply in the evening because the dew falls and kinda washes the tea into the soil. I spray every other day which may seem excessive but when I think about what I'm doing for the soil, I laugh with delight and consider using a bigger brew bucket. If I had a trillion biodegradable balloons(somebody run with this, please), I'd fill them all up with compost tea and start World Waterballoon War I.(smiles, good evil laughs) Imagine bombing a country because their regional produce wasn't crispy enough;-) Then maybe our species may have a better chance...

[Dawnae]

Ok, so a bottle sprayer is my best option..will endure the ensuing arthritis..and I'll try not to destroy the mycelium by blasting it into a fine mist. Wonder if they have sprayers that can take up thick stuff without getting clogged? I will google it. You've convinced me to try this but I'm thinking I'll make some every 1-2 weeks or so.

[Jason]

If you're willing to invest your money you can get something like this or this (you can get bigger rolling ones too). When I start making teas I think I'll get one. It'll definitely make for fewer hand cramps...