Page 31 - Bringing out the Potential In Our Children - Gardeners - Food Producers

compost; including any plant matter that has not fully broken down yet. Top
up with water and cover with lid. Leave sit for a few weeks then your

compost tea will be ready to use diluted approximately 1:10, or the colour
of weak tea. Leave it longer and keep topping it up to use it throughout the
growing season or you can start with a fresh batch each time. If you are not

using a sack to contain the compost you will have to strain it before using
just the liquid.

Here’s some added things you can do to improve the quality and potency.
 Use a forked stick or tool and vigorously stir the tea every
couple of days. To super charge it, spend up to 10 minutes and stir

one way to create a vortex then change direction and make the
vortex spin the opposite way.
 Aerate it with an aerator you can buy from a garden supply

shop or fish and pet supply shop. Follow the instructions to set it up in
your container and keep it bubbling away to produce an aerobic tea.
 Add a large spoonful of sulphured molasses as a sugar and

micro mineral source.

If you are doing worm composting (instructions were given in the section

above on making compost) you can use that to make compost tea or the
leachate, the liquid that trickles slowly from the bottom of your worm
composter, can be used. Dilute approximately 1 to 10 with water and feed

roughly each week on fast growing plants, in the spring and summer, and
every 3 weeks for larger slow growing plants.

Now, not only can you make your own compost, you have the know-how
for making compost tea for feeding the plants in your garden.

In the next chapter we will be looking at cutting down competition to your

plants to make sure it’s your special garden plants that are getting all this
good food you provided.