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How to Make Compost Tea
  • Natural Home

How to Make Compost Tea

Katie WellsMay 9, 2016Updated: Jul 30, 2019
Reading Time: 3 min

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Wellness Mama » Blog » Natural Home » How to Make Compost Tea
Table of Contents[Hide][Show]
  • Compost Tea for the Garden
  • Benefits of Compost Tea+−
    • 1. Helps Plants Grow More Quickly
    • 2. Good Alternative to Toxic Garden Chemicals
    • 3. Microbial Protection from Disease
    • 4. Provides Nutrients and Beneficial Organisms
  • How to Make Compost Tea+−
    • Important Notes

I’ve heard it said that “gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes.” There seems to be some solid science to back up the health benefits of gardening (and to explain why gardeners might live longer as well).

Besides the obvious benefits like super-fresh produce and time spent outside, there are some less well-known benefits to gardening such as probiotics present in the soil, getting a greater amount of Vitamin D from the sun while spending time outdoors, and the scientifically proven stress relief of working in the soil. I’ve shared before how children need dirt to develop a healthy immune system and how overuse of antibacterial soaps has led to a widespread deficiency in important probiotics.

The best part is that it doesn’t matter if you have just a small container garden on your back patio or a full scale organic garden plot, you can get the benefits in just a few minutes of gardening a day.

With soaring food prices and a lack of quality food options, I’d encourage all of us to take a play from our grandparents playbook and grow a Victory Garden of some kind to help our families have access to fresh produce and to reduce our food costs each month.

Over the years, I’ve been using an inexpensive and really effective method to increase the yields of our garden without having to buy or use expensive fertilizers. It is called compost tea, and it is essential a nutrient-rich liquid infusion for your plants. It is super-simple to make and can be made with homemade or store bought organic compost.

Compost Tea for the Garden

Think of compost tea as a probiotic and multivitamin for your plants. It is a liquid extract (thus the name “tea”) made from compost and water and it contains beneficial microorganisms and nutrients that help improve plant growth and may even ward off pests and disease.

Benefits of Compost Tea

You might have seen me write about Probiotics because the soil is naturally a great source of beneficial organisms, but many people don’t realize just how diverse the bacteria in soil can be and how we can support this natural bacteria with simple measures like compost tea. In fact, this simple homemade fertilizer offers many benefits to a garden:

1. Helps Plants Grow More Quickly

Compost tea provides nutrients to the plant and to the soil, leading to more rapid growth of the plant and more robust plants that produce better yields. Over time, natural methods like compost tea also help nourish the soil so the benefits add up year after year.

2. Good Alternative to Toxic Garden Chemicals

Compost tea can help plants more effectively resist disease and pests and replace the need for toxic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. It is also a less-expensive alternative to harmful chemical based garden chemicals and won’t harm pets, wildlife or insects.

3. Microbial Protection from Disease

Just like in humans, the right balance of beneficial bacteria in and on plants can help the plants resist diseases and fungus and make them less susceptible to pests. The microorganisms in compost tea compete with these harmful microbes to give the plants an advantage against these pests.

4. Provides Nutrients and Beneficial Organisms

As I already mentioned, compost tea is essentially a probiotic for plants, providing a concentrated source of the organisms plants need for optimal growth and improving the nutrient levels and microbiome of the soil as well.

How to Make Compost Tea

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups homemade, fresh compost dirt (make sure it is completely composted- it should smell pleasantly earthy) or store bought organic compost
  • 1 gallon of clean, filtered water

Instructions:

  1. Add the water and the soil to a gallon-size bucket or jar and keep in a place out of direct heat or cold (I keep in my garage).
  2. Let sit for at least 5 days, stirring daily.
  3. Strain out the dirt and use the liquid to water the garden.

Important Notes

The measurements for this recipe don’t have to be exact and a rough 8:1 ratio of water to compost will work (or any higher ratio of compost). In fact, this can easily be made in a large five-gallon bucket and used in the garden. If you have a really large garden, it is possible to make this in a 40 or 50 gallon barrel to have enough for the whole garden at once.

Since compost is a source of many types of microorganisms, it is important to make sure that whatever compost is used has been properly composted and is not a source of pathogenic or harmful bacteria. If making your own compost, just make sure it has composted for at least a year or reached a temperature of at least 150 degrees for several days. Most organic store bought composts have been correctly composted. Check the finished compost tea before using on plants to make sure there isn’t any off odor or bubbling that would indicate harmful bacteria. I personally use compost tea earlier in the growing season when plants are establishing and taper off before harvest.

Do you grow a garden? Ever tried using compost tea to help it grow?

Category: Natural Home

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About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a wife and mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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Reader Interactions

Discussion (23 Comments)

  1. Sheree

    May 16, 2016 at 10:06 AM

    How do you use the tea once it’s made? Thank you!

    Reply
  2. Jeanne

    May 16, 2016 at 8:07 AM

    What about garden smoothies, where you take your veggie scraps (potato, carrot, onion, etc. peals), put them in the blender with water and pour them on the garden? Do they work as well or do you not recommend it?

    Reply
    • Wellness Mama

      May 16, 2016 at 9:01 AM

      I haven’t tried that before…

      Reply
  3. Abby

    May 14, 2016 at 7:54 AM

    So very good to be doing this for your garden. We are lacking the essential nutrients in our food due to really poor farming activities. Growing your own stuff is wonder and taste so much better. I actually also make my own and when i go to the beach, i take some seaweed and add it to my mixture. It makes a huge difference. Thank you for sharing – this was a great article to read

    Reply
    • Carol

      April 10, 2018 at 8:08 PM

      Oh what a great idea!

      Reply
  4. Ann

    May 12, 2016 at 4:55 AM

    Thanks for the info! Very helpful. ?

    Reply
  5. Emma

    May 10, 2016 at 9:14 PM

    Hello,
    I could be wrong, but didn’t last year you posted something like this as an April Fools blog. Did you decide that this is now a good thing and we should eat this?
    Just curious,
    Emma

    Reply
    • Wellness Mama

      May 10, 2016 at 9:53 PM

      Compost tea has always been good for the garden, but the April Fool’s post I wrote about it originally directed readers to drink it. This post is the actual instructions on how to use it for your garden. 🙂

      Reply
      • Janae

        May 18, 2016 at 8:53 PM

        Oh..I feel better now :). Thank you!

        Reply
  6. Jane

    May 9, 2016 at 10:15 PM

    What about chicken manure tea, can that be used? how do you make it?

    Reply
    • Sarah

      May 16, 2016 at 8:33 AM

      Chicken manure must be composted very well before it can be applied to the garden because it contains too much nitrogen to be applied directly. You should compost the manure first, then follow these instructions to make compost tea.

      Reply
  7. Michael

    May 9, 2016 at 9:11 PM

    How often should you do this?

    Reply
    • Ron

      May 16, 2016 at 1:28 PM

      As often as possible. But to get the most benefits from using compost tea, apply it every two weeks. You can’t overdo it.

      Reply
    • Ralph

      June 7, 2016 at 6:05 AM

      I do mine as often as possible. You should too.

      Reply
  8. deb

    May 9, 2016 at 6:07 PM

    Wow! What a wonderful idea! I’ll be planting soon and just love compost and natural, organic fertilizers, which can be costly. Last summer I started composting, and this year will reap the benefits. Can’t wait to see how this improves my garden.

    Reply
  9. Joane Elie

    May 12, 2015 at 8:44 AM

    I have a butterfly garden so I make compost…great stuff for the garden. Will have to try out the compost tea next!

    Reply
  10. Joshua Jarman

    April 1, 2015 at 4:50 PM

    I know people that take EM diluted internally and feed it to their animals and livestock. The EM company is out of NZ, but there are several Japanese companies that sell similar concentrated solutions that you can use to compost in a sealed container to create an anaerobic bacteria solution. People spray it around their homes to kill molds, use it in their gardens to increase yields, and some even drink the stuff. I’ve also known several people who ate dirt for health.

    Reply
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