Benefits and Dangers of Compost Tea

Compost tea is the process of steeping a bag of compost in water to extract the 'essence' of the compost, the same way you would make tea with a tea bag.

There is evidence that this tea has been used for thousands of years for it's an excellant way to provide nutrients for your plants.

The process is easy; a shovelfull or two of compost is put in a mesh bag and allowed to sit in 5 gallons of water for a week and the tea produced is mixed with water (1 part tea to 2 parts water) and used as a foliar spray or just to water your plants.

What happens is that over the week of steeping, bacteria grows and feeds on the organic components of the compost producing essential plant nutrients as a by-product of the feeding.

Not only are nutrients produced but increased disease protection for your plants is developed making this tea a very useful and powerful part of your organic hydroponics garden.

What you should be aware of is that the bacterial colony working in the tea is actually a balance of good and bad bacteria; 'good' meaning benefical for nutrient development and 'bad' meaning pathogenic to humans.

In this time of newly emerging viral, bacterial and fungal strains you need to be careful in how you make tea out of compost. How it has been made for thousands of years could actually be dangerous to your health.

So, how to make a 'safe' compost tea? First, always wear gloves and practice good hygiene. Wash your hands well after handling the 'tea'. Second, place an aquarium air bubbler into the tea mixture as it steeps to provide oxygen which encourages the growth of 'good' bacteria.

This may seem like an unnecessary concern but 'better safe than sorry'. By the way, I probably don't need to say that this is entirely my opinion and others will feel differently.

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