Tea time

The tea is ready!

The compost tea is ready and it's time to fertilize the garden. 

The first step is to strain the tea to a purely liquid form.  I use a small coffee strainer that I picked up at a yard sale but a piece of cotton fabric works well too.

Even this strained form is too intense for most plants so it needs to be diluted.  I like to mix 3 parts rain water to 1 part compost tea.

Straining the tea

I use most of my tea as a foliar spray.   I purchased a garden sprayer this summer so I can spray all my gardens in about one hour.   I like to spray in the morning when the stomata are wide open for maximum absorption of the the microbes. 

Through trial and error, I've learned a few things about compost tea as a foliar spray.  There are some plants in my garden that don't need fertilizing (nandina, mint, vinca major).  There are some plants that don't want to be fertilized (oak leaf hydrangea).  Roses love the fertilizer but the foliar version tends to burn the buds, producing brown spots on the blooms.

So, a second use for compost tea is as a root-applied fertilizer.  I still dilute it but don't know if I need to do so.  I use the the root application on the roses and on any plant that is currently producing ripening fruit.  I don't know that this is necessary either as the tea is sanitary but I'm concerned with the strong-smelling tea affecting the flavor of the fruit/veggies. 

Finally, I take the dregs of the compost tea and dump it back onto the compost heap.   The microbes in the tea seem to speed up the composting process.

I brew tea approximately every 10 days during the summer.  Tea anyone?