How to Make and Use Compost Tea

Spraying compost tea will deliver plant nutrients to the plant to keep it healthy, promote growth and protect it from diseases by applying "antagonistic" microoganisms on the leave surface.

Compost tea can be made from Viragrow 166 Compost or our Organic Compost Here's how.

Soak Compost in Clean Water

Tap water is fine to use. Soak about two cups of Viragrow 166 Compost or Organic Compost in a five gallon container of water overnight. I like to use this compost tea ball because it keeps the fine particles out of the water. It's over 5 inches in diameter. We use enough compost in it to fill the bottom part and then soak.

Fine particles from the compost can plug a sprayer if you don't use some sort of filter. The holes in the tea ball seems to be small enough to filter the water for most sprayers. Alternatively you can use a cotton sock and put about two cups of compost in that and soak it in the water. The compost can still be used after it has released a bunch of plant nutrients and microoganisms. The cotton sock filters the compost even more than the tea ball does.

Dilute the Compost Tea

The level of nutrients in the water is too rich for most plants. These levels of nutrients should be diluted to make it safe to spray on plant leaves. Mix the same amount of clean water with your rich compost tea. This dilutes the nutrients enough to make it safe to spray on most plant leaves. If you want to do some checking to make sure, the salt level of the final spray should be between 3 -4 mmhos/cm or less than 2500 ppm. There is about 650 ppm for each mmho/com. Use a salt meter to check it. Salt meters like they use for salt water aquariums will work and they are not that expensive.

Link to a salinity meter

Mix in a Spray Adjuvant

Spray adjuvants help move past the resistant surface layer of leaves and inside the leaf. Plant nutrients move directly inside the leaf and dont have to be transported that circuitous path from roots, through stems and finally to the leaves. An excellent spray adjuvant for doing this is Viragrow's EZ Wet. Use one teaspoon per gallon of spray solution. Its made from Yucca extracts.

Spraying Compost Tea on Plant Leaves

A compost tea solution sprayed on plant leaves will fertilize and protect plants from many different diseases. Spray only enough to thoroughly  wet the leaves and no more. Repeat this spray to plant leaves every 30 days if you want to promote growth. Spray bottles will work if you have only a few plants to spray or use a compressed air sprayer.

Storage of Compost Tea

Compost tea will stay fresh for about two weeks in a refrigerator before the microorganisms begin to fail. After that it still works as a "fertilizer spray" but loses its potency for disease protection.