Compost tea is a concentrated blast of nutrients for plants and soil. You can make it at home for free. Pat, a retired science teacher and experienced gardener, showed me how it’s done at her Mukilteo home yesterday. Here is her recipe:
Put 2 cups of compost in a bucket along with a gallon of water. Let it steep for three days. The tea needs to be strained. Pat stretches an old cloth diaper across the top of the bucket and holds it in place with a bungee cord. She slowly pours the mixture through.
The clumpy remains go back in her compost heap. The tea gets poured into old gallon milk containers. She uses an old vodka bottle with the bottom cut out as a funnel.
I met Pat after she answered my offer to take a box of commercial worm poop home. I’d received a free box of the stuff last month. In her household, I am known as “the worm poop lady.” She is currently testing the stuff on her seedlings. So far it’s performing about the same as her homemade compost tea. She’ll continue to test and report back later in the season.
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