I am planning a reaction video so if you have any reels you want me to comment on be sure to dm me! instagram.com/gardeningincanada Also GIC Crew I am 99.9% sure you have asked me to make this video a million times. 😅
Love this info, would you debunk Comfrey Tea? Also, is there any nutrient benefit of mixing compost into water and then watering, not steeping it like tea?
@@GardeningInCanada If the parrot has been exposed to an old fire safety alarm in need of a battery it was ingrained. I had one that did a servant's bell at +150dB .. Piercing
Same here. I make it out of fresh leafs, fruits and vegetables that go bad and also alpaca poop. I leave it sitting in a bucket for 2 weeks then feed my plants.
@@christiannunez6025that’s not the case in my particular situation. My plants show signs of nutrient deficiencies sooner than the time before I started brewing protozoa centric compost teas. I have to top dress more often now, presumably because the protozoa I’m watering in are consuming my soil bacteria, which makes their constituents into plant available nutrients and opens up habitat for more bacteria. It seems to have sped up the pace of nutrient cycling.
Did the control plants get plain compost or nothing at all? The claim seems to be that compost tea is more trouble than regular compost for the same benefit.
@@laughinggiraffe9176 I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth if you’re just trying to water in nutrients/bacteria. If your situation is more like the one I outline above (brewing for protozoa), it can be worth the effort.
@@GardeningInCanadafor people what live in areas with wild animals, this often is not a possibility. I personally live in a highly forested area. My landlord will not allow me a compost bin because every summer we have to fight off field rats, king fishers, & larger predatory animals. Just last summer we lost a duck to a king fisher that had been stalking the rats near the edge of our property.
@@szarahsshow5321 Don't muddle up the discussion by saying you can't have a compost bin at your place. That's a separate issue entirely. *Finished* compost does not attract pest and vermin any more than the native soil does. Very few gardeners ever make enough compost to cover their entire gardens anyway; they're bringing some or most of it in from other places every year. So the "compost piles attract pests" argument is completely irrelevant here.
@@socloseagain4298 it's not for everyone, but there is definite merit in that "Back to Eden" approach. Anytime you can just let organic material break down in place, you're off to a good start.
As someone who has to fight field rats every year, and has to worry about the wild animals in the forest around me… that’s not really an option for everyone. People who do something different than you aren’t always “making things more complicated” but rather, have different variable they need to account for. Just something food for your thoughts.
@@christiannunez6025 they've been going on and on about pests and vermin in the compost *pile.* That's a completely different topic than simply top-dressing with *finished* compost.
You mentioned algae being beneficial in soil. That is a little surprising to me as many people in the houseplant community are so scared of it ever showing up in their clear plant pots claiming that algae can rob potted plants of nutrients. I never believed it was harmful to the plants and never cared about it showing up in my pots. I think a new video on algae would be fantastic!
I don't think this is a fair criticism. I should say the evidence for the benefits of compost tea is very limited, but you didn't go over any studies at all. There are studies showing that it is effective as a preventative for diseases in greenhouse, and pathogens in lab experiments, even anaerobic compost tea. Of course, like most ideas in plant science, this doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the field conditions. As you mention, soil bounces back to its "natural state", but it's more nuanced. Ecosystems are robust, just like living systems, meaning you can perturb the system (to a degree) and it will still be able to maintain itself. It is not really about increasing the amount of living in the soil, as you claim. If we are just arm-chair theorizing about compost tea, I like to think it as an inoculation. If you were to spread some edible mushroom spores in your backyard, it is unlikely you will end up with the intended mushrooms. But if you inoculate enough logs with lots of mycelium, before the logs were dominated by another organism, and try to maintain conditions favorable to your fungus, your chances are high. In theory, compost tea might act similarly. Perhaps the beneficial microbes can't survive too long in the real environment, but you might still get benefit by regular applications, kind of like buying beneficial insects. Or maybe you are adding someone new to the system, and one-time application is enough. For some reason that microbe wasn't in the soil or at least some portion of the soil. We believe a pathogen can be introduced, right? Soil doesn't always get rid of it, sometimes it becomes a part of the system. I believe agriculture is all about nudging the system to be favorable to us. Soil keeps on living, animals and plants too, but we want them to live in harmony with us. Our sciences are too far from understanding how these systems really work. I don't know if or when or what kind of compost tea can be helpful. And I like your analogy, similar to brewing, fermenting, culturing, there are probably lots of ways to go wrong (and you can't directly know if it went wrong like you would by tasting your wine). But I believe trying to convince people this is a question worth investigating is a better approach than dismissing it because it's too hyped.
I did stumble on a few done on vermicompost teas. But none are peer reviewed that I have seen, that’s what makes me hesitant to consider the studies. Trials and papers are something anyone can cook up and publish. Not saying it’s not valuable and a place to spring board conversation but it’s technically not hard evidence. Or I guess I should say accepted by the scientific community
@@GardeningInCanada right. Peer review and corroboration are the key here. Literally anyone can try an "experiment" once and claim it works. Generally when youtubers and various gurus (and people trying to sell you this or that garden elixir) make claims like that, you find all sorts of glaring problems with their methodology and data collection. The kinds of things that would get them failed in a high school science project. 🙃
@@racebiketuner it doesn't support what exactly? I stated different hypotheses about how microbes from compost tea might interact with soil and plants, also saying this is something we can't tell with our current understanding.
One summer, my father-in-law made several 5 gal covered buckets of anerobic compost from kitchen waste; stunk to high heaven. After summer months entering into fall we decided to empty the watery concoction onto the ground under the canopy of a 12"+ cal tree. In the next few weeks we noticed that the entire tree had noticeably very deep, dark green foliage, which eventually changed colors in the fall weather. We only did this once but I recall that tree didn't have anywhere near that dark vibrancy before or after that. The tree had no sign of distress that I'm aware of. I'm not sure but (as he was retired) he may have juiced the compost with other things as he was a mad-garden scientist...I never asked what he put into it.
That is not "compost tea," specifically not aerated compost tea. That's a simple extraction; people have been doing it for centuries. It's like making "comfrey tea" or "weed tea." Literally any organic material will work for that to some extent. It's a fertilizer for sure; that liquid will definitely have nutrients and minerals in it. But it won't have much if any beneficial microbes, which is the entire point of making aerated compost tea. The trouble with anaerobic plant/manure/food waste teas used as fertilizer is, you don't really know what you've got. In terms of NPK and micronutrients, etc. Unless you actually test it. So you may or may not be giving the plants enough (or possibly too much) of any given nutrient at any given time. I'm not saying don't do it; I've been using it for several years. In my experience plants react to it about the same as they do to standard liquid organics like fish emulsion. So yeah, it works, it's just sort of hard to pin down exactly how well it works, because the batch of comfrey (or kitchen scrap) tea I made may be completely different from the batch my neighbor made. BTW, just leave the bucket covered for at least a few months, and then it won't stink anymore. The nasty "sewage" smell comes from the anaerobic bacteria breaking everything down. It's bacteria farts, sort of. Anyway, once they eat up all they can, they simply die off... and the "tea" is done. I make a barrel full every spring and don't use it until the following spring.
I love how you misrepresented every single bit of it. Like for example "when you apply it in a sunny, warm day". And then proceed to completely discard foliar application just based on that. When in reality, people who make compost tea apply it at dawn or dusk. I'm not a proponent of compost tea, but you are not making good arguments against it. Sounds more like you made your mind before even starting, and then tried to find anything to say against it.
You must be new to the channel… I don’t believe in gardening rules… if you are going to use it regardless of what I think you should use it the hypothetically best case scenario…
The only fertilizer I use for my seedlings in my grow room is a combination of vermicompost / aged hot compost extract. Take a handful of each, put in a mesh bag, massage the bag in a 5 gal bucket of warm water with a dollop of molasses for a minute or so, then water my plants. The mud left over in the bag goes back into a worm bin. I also make a couple few 5 gal buckets of fermented comfrey "tea" each year, sometimes I aerate it before applying to my soils to get the stink out. Enjoy your videos. Stay Well!!!
@@joshoooway My grow room is inside, would have no reservations whatsoever to use on either. I use finished leaf mold for growing wheatgrass for the worms in the winter, I use the vermicompost extract for that too. Stay Well !!!!
@@brianseybert192 you grow wheatgrass specifically for the worms?! I was going to use the vermicompost to grow wheatgrass for me and my guinea pigs, but I hadn't thought to grow wheatgrass for the worms too!
Thanks for this. I would add to worm tea / weed tea, that you look into JADAM (and their Liquid Fertilizer). It's from South Korea (son of the guy who created KNF), and he goes anaerobic too, and iirc he tests regularly for quantity of bacteria / microorganisms :
I use compost tea for indoor gardening to reduce bugs from topping with raw compost from the outside that's sure to bring gnats and other annoyances into a sterile tent. Dried "compost tea" microbial inoculants are hugely beneficial when growing in a sterile medium like coco coir. Compost tea isn't "bad" it just depends where and how you use it.
I would say in my time farming you without a doubt see happier plants with a well made compoat tea. I tend to use as a treat for my plants but not for actual sustinance. I have noticed it being helpful in acute situations to "steer" the biology towards fruiting or flowering. I have seen the side by side difference in yield and overall chemical composition of the plants as well. I like to think of it more like how yogurt or kobucha has "transitory" benefits in the intrim, but quite often isn't enough to actually colinize the space. We actually love to feed our soil (these are no-till beds) aerobic compost tea as the aerobic microbes actually die going into our (balanced) anerobic system and become a food source for the microbes already dominating the soil. And we are doing this in comerical production as well so at the end of the day the sales and yield don't lie. But I also understand this is on a case by case basis.
I’ve been using it for about a month now on my indoor plants. I keep my indoor plant outside during summer, then bring them in when I start to smell October air. They’ve already been doing better inside with low light & compost tea than they were doing in the summer sun.
In 66 years of farming , I would say without a doubt my best sources of information have been agricultural universities, extension offices and papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
I have to disagree the "fetid swamp water" that I make (from David the good channel) definitely does benefit my plants and I see it in the yield- it literally cured the fungal infection on my dwarf apple trees! I believe my buckets have both aerobic and anerobic bacterium- the buckets freeze up during winter, thaw out, i only use rain or filtered water and top it up- only thing i add is some epsom salts yearly. So i see results and will continue to use it- it really helps my crops fend off diseases, i companion plant too, this is a game changer, especially attracting the predator benfit insects. Ps. I use a hand pump spray under pressure, long handle and spray right down by the stem.
Love your channel!!!! I am learning and also confirming things I had thought over the years. Total nerd here. As a life long organic gardener and mushroom cultivator, I am firm on composting, no teas. If I want more microbes I ferment wood chips and add them to my compost. Although I am slightly selective in what I add to my compost as I'm looking for relative nutrient profiles combined to make the whole as well as composition and aeration. Spent mushroom blocks make a great addition to the compost pile as well.
This past spring I put some biochar in a couple of buckets. I added a liter of liquid fish fertilizer to each one, topped them up with water, and put lids on them for about 3 weeks. Oh dear god, the smell when I opened them up was something god himself couldn't have come up with. I spread it out over where I was planting tomatoes and rototilled it all in. The smell disappeared quite quickly. Even though May and June this year was pretty much just an extension of late winter, I had a GREAT crop of tomatoes. I've never tried this compost tea stuff, and probably won't now after seeing your video, but I will be doing my stinky fish biochar thing again for sure.
It stunk because it was full of living anaerobic bacteria. In a manner of speaking, they "fart" a lot... and their "farts" smell like sewage. It stopped stinking when you applied it because oxygen and possibly the sunlight killed off those bacteria. If you just leave it in covered in a bucket for a few months, the anaerobic bacteria will have eaten up everything they can and will simply die off naturally... then the tea doesn't stink anymore. I mean it still has an aroma, but it won't be like that giant whiff of raw sewage when you open it.
I love your videos but I have to disagree. The biggest lie told to gardeners is what every is brand new gotta have at the garden centers in the spring!
Most organic centric companies like buildasoil don't even recommend compost teas anymore. My grandma poors milk into her soil for her tomatoes and disagrees with everyone too. Doesn't make it true. This woman spent years getting an education in soil science and yet, some random person online knows more because vibes
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that microbes are naturally already at capacity for a given environment. Adding microbes through a tea application might spike the population temporarily, but once the food source in the tea is consumed they die off, leaving you with the same amount in the soil that was already there.
@@GardeningInCanadaYeah. When you see operations that are relying heavily on compost teas, they're using a LOT of it, several times a year. Sometimes even weekly. It doesn't make any sense. If your soil is healthy, you really shouldn't have to top off or boost the microbial population all the time. It seems to me to be, in practice, the equivalent of using soluble synthetic fertilizers constantly like industrial ag does. I mean yeah that works to get a crop every year... but it's not doing a lot for your soil. It's more like just running a giant hydroponic system - you have to replace everything every grow cycle. The big difference there is that regular applications of synthetic fertilizers do in fact give measurable results. I'm still not convinced that regular application of compost teas does much of anything at all.
@@DogSlobberGardens-i7f I'm a market farmer, but not the type that make TH-cam videos. I use 10-10-10 and compost at planting, unless it is a root crop, then it's straight composted chicken manure. If you use synthetic and organic nutrients you get super plants. I hardly have any insect issues with this incredible duo. I have basically married conventional and no-till on my farm. It works and I get massive yields! Screw an ideology.
Microbe saturation has many benefits. More microbes means more rapid decomposition of soil organic matter and their exudates help dissolve the minerals in the soil to turn mineral dust into plant nutrients. All those microbe bodies become plant food as well.
i am part of the disagree camp. i make my own compost and vermicompost and makes a very good tea. a good blend will be esential in bringing life into dead soil. and for me you eventually are topped off in the beds and cant add anymore compost directly (i dont have the 6-12" of space in my raised beds like you lol) but i am able to make my blend of tea all year long.
Sweet! I'm looking forward to it. I have a tree nursery and get asked all kinds of questions during consultations. There are so many "feelgood" solutions out there created by permaculture and biodynamic gurus that just need to be set straight.
The funny part is, ALL plants are "dynamic accumulators." That (and photosynthesis) is just how they grow. Whether or not comfrey is really any better than, say, red dock or turf grass or common weeds, at "accumulating" nutrients from the soil, is unclear to me. There are a lot of wild claims, but I haven't seen much actual data. We do grow comfrey and make a tea fertilizer out of it, but only because we also use the comfrey for herbal products and rabbit/chicken feed. If not for that I'd just use grass/weed tea, because in my experience it seems to work just as well as comfrey-based fertilizer. I have two separate finished batches of tea fertilizer ready for testing - one was made with comfrey only and the other with all sorts of weeds and grass, at the same time. I just need to find a lab that will test them properly.
Our compost system is metal lined with three bins all sloping towards one end. At the end I have it drain into a sheet metal gutter that is over a bucket. Now when it rains and the compost pile has too much water, the nutrients are no longer lost to the surrounding forest. They end up in my bucket. That excess compost leachate in the bucket I can include with the normal watering to whichever plants I want. So far (this Fall) it seems to benefit the plants I fed. The system is still new at not yet a year old. The leachate is a deep brown that comes out. Probably consists mostly of liquid worm castings. There is a ton of red wigglers in there.
That's an extraction. Which is great, and you're wise to make use of those leachates, but it's not the same as the hype about "compost tea." What folks actually mean when they say "compost tea" is *aerated* compost tea, where you use a bubbler or pump to push more oxygen into the water, to boost bacterial growth as the finished compost steeps for 12-24 hours. Sometimes abbreviated as AACT - actively aerated compost tea.
@@GardeningInCanada Thanks for the comment and the concern. Not to worry, I only add about 1 cup leachate / 1 gallon of water when I distribute the liquid composty goodness to my hungry garden.
@@GardeningInCanada it sure is. Mark's doing it right. A gallon of that leachate can be diluted a great deal, to cover a wide area. Similar to using an anaerobic plant-based fertilizer such as "comfrey tea", or urine, or fish emulsion for that matter.
Honestly, as a biologist I never co nsidered using compost tea in my garden. Here in Germany there even is a company selling large constructions for the production and distribution of compost tea.
There is a study released last week that shows plants treated with compost tea grew more than 100% more biomass than the group control. Compost tea is good to soil.
@GardeningInCanada BTW if you find any problems in this study, please point it (make a video about it, if you will). The point of my comment is not to discredit you or point fingers at you by any means. I just want to bring more information so we can discuss as a community and learn together. :)
Although i understand all your points, i have a different experience with worm tea. Specifically Used as a drench. Not as a nutritional boost so much as a pest deterant. I have seen it across plant species. Japanese beetle 🪲 seem to avoid plants that have been given the drench. Maybe they dont like the taste of worm poo or it masks the natural smell of the plant. Thoughts? Also yes deep dives are always loved. An updated version of old videos would be appreciated as well. Thank you for anoth great video.
That is so interesting! Honestly there is a very real possibility there is something they do not like. Plants all have natural deterrents against pests of all types. You must have something in there those guys really do not like.
Do you put frass in the worm bin sometimes? I watch your videos and don't see you do that, but I know beetles don't like chitin. I've been throwing in dead bugs here & there to try to increase the chitinase in castings. I have a Japanese beetle problem here so I'll be doing more casting drenches to see if that works.
If your soil is too low in organic matter to support a thriving worm population, the chitinase from the castings could have a positive effect on the plant's immune system. In any case, correlation does not imply causation. Type HB nematodes are an effective biological control for Japanese beetles - if you apply them correctly in heavy doses. Most people do not.
Good content. I like that you bring a critical eye, but I have to say that compost and compost tea are not intended to be plant food, and I'm in serious doubt that reported benefits of foliar application of compost tea are purely superstition. Having worked in commercial AG I've had similar arguments repeatedly with University trained farmers regarding book smartness vs applied common sense in their attempts to balance nutrient loads within a compost pile in order to later feed their plants with it. Feeding plants is not what compost nor compost tea are intended to be used for (though they do help plants to feed), and it's easy to over think the process. Modern gardening and AG do much to deplete and corrupt soil, air and water culture. Think of compost and compost tea not as food for plants but as inoculation and conditioners of soil culture and air/leaf surface culture via structure (prebiotics/prefungals) and medication (probiotics/fungal exudates, spores and yeasts, and micronutrients) and you'll realize it's amazing value. Foliar application of aerobic compost tea has immediately visible results in plant vibrancy and disease resistance (anecdotally of course, try it), plausibly due to trace vitamins, minerals and nitrogen, but more likely due to broad spectrum antibiotic and antiviral as well as pre/probiotic properties of fungal/yeast exudates, ensuring positive bacterial culture and excluding disease. I find the most benefit to my indoor and greenhouse plants (due to their relative isolation from the outdoor environment) from both compost when repotting, and foliar tea occasionally throughout the growth cycle, but even outdoor plants seem to thrive and have less predation with occasional foliar tea application as well as adding compost during planting/tillage. I would recommend conducting some personal experimentation, and then use your results to work backward from the real world conditions you encounter, rather than rely on thought experiments. Science is great for it's reductive views, but they are also it's "Achilles heel", as they rarely translate cleanly to macro environmental applications due to blind spots and omissions...Forest for the trees etc. I still liked your video 😉
I beg to differ with you. My research shows that compost tea from finished compost, aerated and given nutrients for the bio organisms makes a difference big difference on revitalizing “worn out soils” the liquid is put into the furrow behind the seed drops then covered with the planters covering devices. Lots of Agri university research shows positive results. This technique, allows. Multiple acres to get benefits from one cubic meter of compost and/ or worm teas. But increasing the microbes thousands of times but adding microbe feeding during the “brew”
The fact is the compost in the tea is not going to have enough nutrients to help I have said this forever . I apply compost 3/4” on my beds . I do make LAB and use as a soil drench in the spring after I have solarized my beds
Thank you for this video! I was all pumped to set up a compost tea system this spring after seeing all the videos on it. But this is a well thought out and very informative video on the reasons not too. Appreciate the time and the science behind your reasons.
I think the point of the video is not to say that your worm tea won’t work but rather to say that just applying the worm compost to the soil would be better
Regards from Australia. I mix my compost, worm tea tea with home made fish tea and grass clipping tea which I spray in the evening on my plants . I never had so healthy plants and the pumpkin leafs are huge . It works for me . Before that I always have put compost in my garden . It did not work that well . My practical experience is for me more impressive than your big since degree . Your words does not feed my family,but the healthy plants do
It's helpful u give the articles and details. Compost tea seems to help some, maybe it depends on what's in it? As for algae tea, which you recommended, any cheap or free way to make it? Any potential drawbacks w/ algae tea or further resources u recommend?
I thought the point of compost tea was for getting more microbes, but now I'm remembering a video you did on soil microbes, and how quickly the recover after using synthetic fertilizer
I have a question but it is not compost tea related. I use rice water from rinsing rice before cooking to water plants, I get flamed by so many people on reddit/ forum each time I mention it. What's the deal with rice water that I am not aware of as my family have been practicing this for container gardening? And why people are getting smelly, sticky soil doing it but not us? Thank you for your time.
I made an alfalfa tea with alfalfa powder , grain dust and air pump last spring [ smelled good 3-5 day perk ] The tea was only used for watering . I did my own test on my seedlings that I transplanted. After about 3-4 weeks the control plants were getting left behind by the plants that got the tea. After transplanting the tea was stopped and all plants got the alfalfa mixture as a heavy mulch . By mid summer the control plants seemed to catch up but next time there well be no control plants, all well get the tea. I was concerned that the alfalfa might contain a herbicide and that was the reason for the test. I got the idea from watching youtube videos on growing cannabis and those people are very bottom line orientated and not just growing for enjoyment , they also have different opinions on teas working. Do your own test !
Hello Miss Gardening in Canada. I live in South Carolina and one thing we do not have a shortage of is marshland, brackish and salt mashes that apparently Native Americans used for fertilizer. We call it Pluff Mud. Supposedly, the stuff is full of minerals and organic material. Can you one day do a video on this subject?
@@anthonyl.kellyakawritedisw9662 I'm in South Carolina. Yes, you can use our swamp water/mud as a light fertilizer. Have you tried it? It gives the plants a good pop. That pluff mud smells like farts because it's so nutrient dense, haha.
@@anthonyl.kellyakawritedisw9662 I'm in Aiken County at the moment, but I've lived on St. Helene island and in Beaufort. I sell at the Farmers Market in Aiken.
I made compost tea by placing a cotton bag of compost in a pail of water. I kept it there for three weeks, stirring every day. I went to take some out to mix with water for watering some bonsai trees when the cell phone in my breast pocket fell into the bucket and the compost tea splashed into my face and got in my eyes. It burned a little because of chili peppers from kitchen scraps. The cell phone survive and so did I. I will say it had me worried for a little while.
Thanks for the video! I make compost tea but its water that ive recollected from my indoor mushroom bed after the excess drips out *i do it fresh cause the extra water drips out minutes after watering (more so cause its there and the right temperature and a little extra mushroom protiens seems to not harm in my experience)
Good info! For the garden just adding compost is definitely supreme. But have a few opinions to consider. 1st off for a garden I would only do a compost extract(nothing but compost, only aerated in water for little time). Teas just add risk and if you have a good compost there is no need to add food and multiply the microbes. You will have plenty of microbes in a extract and they will continue multiply in the garden, in the best environment. Teas are only handy if you need to cover acres with biology. Then it's worth the risk of adding food like molasses and multiplying the microbes in a tea, but better have some good compost! Even though not all the nutrients are extracted, very little of that gasses off once soaked into the soil. Also toss that compost you used in the extract right back into the pile, will continue to break down and no loss! If you have the compost to lay an inch or more down it is the way to go. But I found an extract to be very handy when compost is limited. In my experience you get more out of an extract than a very thin layer / dusting of compost. Go big or go extract! haha. Thin layer of compost oxidizes and gasses off a lot... unless covered with thick mulch I have found.
That's not how I make compost tea. If you get a microscope out and watch you can easily build up microbes.. good and bad if not done right. Earthworm castings, insect frass, molasses and aloe. Air stones. It doesn't need to just set. 💚
I have used worm compost tea for year’s on the garden. It has done great. Because of life one year I didn’t. Garden did so so. No we’re near are good as with the tea. Will continue to use the tea method in my garden. Garden On! 🙂
I haven't watched the hole vid yet but what about weed seeds? I don't do hot composting and my compost is loaded with lawn weeds, that's why I like making a tea.
On a personal scale, making an anaerobic tea from cut weeds or grass is FAR more efficient than composting them. It's a lot faster, a lot less work, and there's almost no waste. You're not particularly worried about microbes at that point, you're just extracting the minerals nutrients from the plant material. And yes, any seeds in it will rot regardless of whether it gets hot or stays cool... unlike in a compost pile. For invasive stuff like buttercups that can grow from a little chunk of old root, breaking them down in water guarantees they can't grow back. Some of those rhizomes can survive a full cycle in a compost pile and still spread out when you apply the finished compost.
I'd love to see a video on how to make a worm farm in a small space(home, small garden/backyard) to make your own worm castings. Thank you for sharing this video. 🥰🌿
The breakdown of the five types of bacteria in terms of oxygen conditions? Totally. Amazing. Subscribed on the spot. Brilliant. Thank you. And. Also. Brilliant to have a detailed breakdown on the science. That has meaningful consequences in the garden. Thank you!
Oh, my you’ve started a bar brawl in the comments - LOL! Reminds me of Big Bang Theory when the women go to the comic book store and asks Howard “who’s the best superhero?” Howard tells them essentially to never ask that out loud if they wish to avoid WW3.😂
This is helpful to know. I always wondered when people said it has more nutrients, where do they expect them to come from. I also didn't know about the algae thing but it makes heaps of sense now you mention it (I've often wondered if the algae in the dishes of my outdoor potted plants were harming my garden soil but now I'm not so concerned)
I always thought the benefit to compost tea is so the nutrients are more readily available. We put compost in the rice fields after the harvest so the fields are ready when the rains start before planting. I want to add more before it goes to seed but it will all wash away before the nutrients can feed the rice. Making and spraying compost tea is a good solution. Now just thinking about it, compost tea may be a good alternative to factory fertilizer for aquaponic systems.
I thought using compost tea was a way to give a small amount of accessible nutrients to your plants when they need it without burning them with constant fertilizer or burying them compost? Is that not true?
@@GardeningInCanada since you know best..... please do us some tests..... here's why, I make leaf mold soils and regular composts.... I liquefy and aerate them and feed that material out as part of a watering schedule....... these plants always out perform plants just fed water in the same base soil. You "Minuet" conclusion seems illogical given the fully liquefied nature of the medium and the fact that the majority of this aqueous mix immediately penetrates the upper 4 inches of soil...... seriously, if you would show real science rather that lots of good ideas it would be easier to accept some of your conclusions.... because I have seen the opposite of what you suggest..... that's where I get a little hung up and my brain just can't say yes to you.
Im a new, BUT i dont use compost, 1-2 cups fish hydrolysate, 1-2 cups worm Tea and 1-2 cups molasses, every 2 weeks, into pots etc, i have done experiments with pots that i did not add this solution with same exact plants and potting mix, the difference is chaulk and cheese, its to even close... the compost in compost tea must have molasses added or the microbes wont increase then i agree its a waste of time
Agreed, it seems to theoretical and it’s one more thing to add to your list that isn’t even fun. Please consider a video addressing glue/paint to “heal” tree wounds. This one drives me nuts.
So what happens to microbes in silty, seasonally waterlogged soil? Are my populations totally shifting between wet winters and dry summers? Or am I likely to find higher populations of the "don't care" bacteria that persist all year? If they are shifting, I could see how applying spring compost might kickstart the summer populations. Last, I would love to better understand the movement of nitrogen through the soil. Does it travel or just evaporate? How far, how fast and under what conditions? In nitrogen deficient soils, is it wise to add things like Urea (Blue DEF, urine) or does it need something else to help it be available to roots?
There are commercial gardens and farms making hundreds of gallons of compost tea at a time, and applying it several times a year. I have yet to see any data from them showing that it's really worth the effort and expense over the course of a year, or several years.
Thank you for this... this idea has been bugging me for years! I couldn't understand how it made any sense, yet so many garden influencer types were touting it's awesomeness.
So what ive been gathering is compost extract goes directly on the the root area and if need be the compost tea goes on the foliage if need be but would it be better to just add the compost tea to the compost pile to add more microbes, and if the compost isn't thick enough around the plants are nutrients limited that's why an extract may be beneficial
The key points are composting plant or worm castings for microbe content is not the main goal and not really worthwhile. It is purely for some nutrients applied while watering that might be in it. I believe any tea should be applied at ground level like you would diluted urine. So, I agree with the observations. Many people after all, are misguided into thinking something is beneficial for the wrong reasons, and talk blasphemy before they start to realize it.
My compost is precious. I'm not going to waste it in a tea! But what about weed tea (anaerobic) or comfrey tea? I use it mostly to recover nutrients and minerals rather than increasing microbial life. Please give me the soil scientist's view. Cheers!
I always thought that was the whole point of compost tea - to take a small amount of precious compost and maximize its use. One handful of compost creates a batch of tea that is enough to apply to the whole garden. I see it as a tool to increase microbe population in depleted soils and as a compost accelerant. The problem with these kinds of things is the commercialization and marketing of these products as a do-all solve everything product. Videos like this are very important as they push back against these marketing exaggerations.
@@hatz11 Correct. Aerated compost tea was never intended to replace normal compost or fertilizers. It's almost entirely about inoculating the soil with beneficial bacteria. The hype around what people *think* "compost tea" is and what it can do has gotten completely out of control. Scroll through these comments and you'll find several people who assume they're making "compost tea," but they're really just making a simple anaerobic extraction. That's a different thing entirely, and you can do the same thing with weeds or comfrey or fresh manure or a bucket of dead rats. I agree that if you only have a small amount of healthy active compost, making a tea with it may very well be the most efficient and effective way to use it.
Ok, after making the compost tea, why wouldn't one put the compost from the tea into the garden? I haven't seen a comment about using the "spent" compost used in the tea.
My interest in compost tea would be when watering plants that live in sand. Would soaking rabbit poo in water provide nutrients to the sand without adding volume?
And are you saying that leaving the cover off my gardening IBC tote (therefore encouraging algae growth) would be better also? I just never cared if the water bucket had algae; why would the dirt care about water that's green with plant growth? 😂
I’m nervous to say yes to that only because when we are talking about feces and fermenting. But hypothetically with manures we call it a slurry. The purpose being even application compared to its raw form.
@@GardeningInCanada THANK you, Ashley. I *thought* that leaving it in would be okay, and the carrots this year were delicious, even with the moss, so I feel better about it now. Mostly I guess it's a cosmetic thing for me. LOL
I have to disagree on this subject i am growing my most beautiful Tomato plants using compost tea, the leaves are a dark emerald green its quite impressive. and plants are starting to flower. will see how the actual tomatoes turn out. but so far looking good.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on veggie tea? This past summer I soaked veggies…kitchen scraps, spoiled fruit, etc. in a bucket of water placed in the sunlight. It made a nice slurry. I’d like your opinion on its benefits please. Love your talks!
Compost tea is for inoculating the soil (and leaves) with beneficial microbes. Not adding nutrients. 6:12 If you brew the tea for ~24hrs it will remain aerobic. The reason it goes anaerobic is because the microbes multiply and use up the oxygen to breathe. 11:33 Ammonia is NH3, not NH4, and is what gases off in anaerobic conditions. When oxygen is available, microbes change Ammonium (NH4) to nitrite (NO2) and then to our beloved nitrate (NO3) which is of course, fertilizer. So no, an aerobic compost tea will not off gas your nitrogen. You can also tell by the smell - ammonia stinks! 14:04 The biofilm you describe forms in the presence of water but is far more than just water. It's a slime that microbes use to protect themselves, like in dry conditions. They also secrete chemicals called osmoprotectants that help, and sometimes just go dormant to survive. 14:48 Lastly, and most importantly, compost tea is not about adding more microbes. It's about increasing the diversity of microbes. Not just bacteria, but also protozoa, and fungi. It seems you haven't researched the soil food web and how compost tea was originally used to correct imbalances in the types of microbes in the soil, not the total number present.
As someone who gardens and also keeps aquariums, algae grows a hell of a lot better when it has a nitrogen source in the water with it. While I have never been one to take my finished compost and make compost tea, I can still see some benefits from the way I tend to do it. I weed my garden, the weeds go in a bucket, at some point it rains, the weeds turn into compost tea, I dump it on whatever area I think needs more nutrition because it needs dumped somewhere. More times than not, there is some algae in the bucket lol. I also dump my aquarium water in the garden when doing maintenance.
@@GardeningInCanada It sure is. I also grow a lot of plants in the aquarium. Duckweed for one, which grows like CRAZY. So I always have to trim and thin them out and those go directly into the compost. Duckweed is a "superfood" so I always imagine it gives quite a boost to the compost.
@@carvedwood1953 You're making anaerobic weed tea, which is a fertilizer. That is not the same thing as "compost tea" as we're discussing here. The whole hype about "compost tea" is really "*aerated* compost tea." You start with finished compost that already contains beneficial aerobic bacteria, and you have to steep it in water with a bubbler or agitation to increase oxygen in the water, and therefore help increase the bacteria you're looking for. The minute you cut off the flow of extra oxygen, those beneficial bacteria start dying off - so you need to use the tea within hours, not days, to get the most out of it. None of that matters when you're just letting plant or other organic material rot anaerobically in water. The aim is not to increase bacteria; you're just extracting the minerals and nutrients. In a covered container, it will store and be just as effective a year later. Possibly a lot longer.
Do larger compounds like vitamins and their precursors get degraded by the aerobic compost tea process? I have seen many gardeners make teas for a supposed vitamin boost. Also, do the other macro plant nutrients (P & K) 'gas off'?
The only real vitamin I have seen mentioned the odd time is vitamin B. I can’t remember what the reasoning for it is. But I believe people are under the impression it helps with stress.
This science isn't available in a lot of places and some people appreciate the scientific aspects of their favorite hobby. If this isn't your thing by all means you do you, have fun, get your hands dirty, enjoy your garden we love that for you!
Is there a special compost that’s good for cultivating in cannabis? My next grow, I don’t wanna buy any kind of fertilizers or synthetic nutrients. I just want compost and water
I think of compost tea as being good for one main set of gardening, namely aquaponic/hydroponic growing systems - which need nutrients in a liquid form. This overall being a path to link regular in ground growing & aqua/hydro paunic growing systems.
I'm confused, if NH3 is converted into Nitrate's, what's the big loss, most compost tea's are to accelerate a bacteria or fungus in the rhizosphere arent they?
Some definitely stays in the system! Your losses are based on environmental conditions. And honestly not all soils are built equal some will give up N to leaching and volatilization easy others not so much.
I'd heard that for compost teas and the like, that the benefit for disease control is due to quorum sensing in the microbes. Dr Christine Jones has a video on it. The idea being that bacteria often only start to manifest their effects (harmful like many diseases, or beneficial like nitrogen fixing) when there is a sufficient number of them which the bacteria know by way of quorum sensing. Compost tea dissolves the sensing molecules and let's you apply them over a larger area to boost/dampen certain signals
Now I'm worried about how dangerous the "tea" or liquid runoff from my vermicomposter might be.... I've slathered it onto my fruit tree trunks with some other stuff, testing out Dr. Garrett's (The Dirt Doctor) tree trunk goop idea. With my bare hands. And definitely wiping hair out of my face while I'm at it 😂 I've also been storing it in clear jugs.... should I be storing it in opaque jugs? Can I even store it long term at all, or would the anaerobic conditions inside jugs kill off the beneficial organisms in it?
That’s a bit different because it’s not a diluted water solution. That’s a legitimately dense product that is leaching out. So I can guarantee that nutrient and even microbes per litre is significantly higher in your juice.
Elaine Ingham and the soil food web school may beg to differ, foliar spray case studies have been done with shadowing microscopy verifying results of highly effective prevention and yield increase vs a control crop
Yes, Dr. Elaine Ingham, Nicole Masters, John Kempf, Matt Powers, Graeme Sait, and an army of good long time practicing soil scientists and successful farmers would disagree with this video. I disagree too, and so does my microscope! Properly brewed tea exponentially multiplies biology… unless you brew it too long and they runout of food and die. It needs to be applied at the optimal time. I’ve taken Dr. Elaine’s course and have seen many benefits from well made tea made from excellent compost. You simply can’t make or accumulate enough compost to cover a 10,000 acre farm, but with compost teas and extracts, you can!!!
@garthwunsch7320 but do you truly believe the average layman to have the knowledge and ability (and/or taken a course) necessary to brew a tea in the aforementioned "proper" manner?
Never made sense to me and after forgetting about some seaweed I'd gathered from the nearby shore in a bucket that quickly filled with rainwater, I have never been temped to make any kind of plant "tea" ever again. I make plenty of compost though, which makes perfect sense. I'm still happy to gather seaweed, chop it up and add it compost or just as a mulch.
Yeah, I don't know who is making those claims about more nutrients but they're obviously wrong. I think there needs to be conscious application for the intended purpose. I tend to use compost teas as an inoculant for biochar with soil samples from local forests, or a nutrient transfer method when you cannot apply compost directly.
I use my compost tea in conjunction with anaerobic ferments, it seems to be working very well so I'll have to watch your video and see your science behind the logic.
@@GardeningInCanadaI finished watching the video and you make a lot of good points. What I currently do is make an aerobic compost tea with a couple extra ingredients. I use it mainly as a soil drench... My soil has biochar and a nice mulch on top. It's my understanding, but I don't know, that the biochar will help create pockets that the microbes will thrive on/in , like housing. But that could be an old wives tale lol. Anyways I also add broken down anaerobic ferments, I add flowers to one bucket I add green to another let those breakdown use one for Bloom use the other for nitrogen. In my opinion ,no science backing this just observation, I use the increase microbes from the compost tea which thrive under my mulch on the biochar to break down the anaerobic ferments quicker.. and when the microbes have eaten their fill and start to die off they just break down into another food source. Good video by the way I have always been wary of foliars and using a compost tea as one doesn't make sense after watching your video, thanks.
Less than 2 minutes in I paused to read a few comments which lead me to do my own investigation, which following a quick survey concludes it would be a waste of time, which saved me about 10 minutes to write this comment at a leisurely pace.
What about vermicompost teas and extracts? Aside from higher amount of beneficial microbes than normal compost, I have also heard there are beneficial plant growth hormones in worm castings that become more available when brewed into a tea. And also have heard that there can be beneficial fungi in the worm castings that may not be present in native soil and is worth inoculating the soil with. Do you think vermicompost is still worth brewing into an aerated tea (or even worth mixing with water for a quick extract), or should I stick to just adding solid worm castings directly to the soil?
No to be all "appeal to nature" but what would be the thing that plants need that wont be available in their natural habitat, soil, but will be in water? Unless you have a specific reason to try something or just enjoy tinkering don't worry about it. There are a thousand supposedly amazing things for our garden/plants, everyone swears by a handfull of those but no one's handfull is the same. I think it says more about gardeners than gardening, we're curious and like to try stuff.
@@harrybrandelius7816 Well with vermicompost tea, I'm mostly trying to stretch a small amount of the beneficial substance accross a wider area, since worm castings are usually produced in much smaller volume, and can't be applied as liberally as compost when in solid form. So my thought is mostly that the vermicompost tea is a concentrated source of plant horomones with the added benefit of a short term microbe boost. For example, when rooting cuttings, I use a rooting horomone as well as an aged vermicompost or vermicompost tea. Or if a tree looks partiuarily unhealthy, i use a concentrated vermicompsot tea to hopefully outcompete the pathogens and kill them off in the short term.
In "Teaming with Microbes" the book ends, after all the soil science, with an entire chapter dedicated to using compost or worm tea as amendments. There's plenty of empirical evidence to suggest it works for many, and a solid hypothesis in stating that putting a soup of micronutrients into the soil could act as an inoculate, or the start of a culture. However, in your previous videos, I get your point about how soil will basically hit an equilibrium, the stuff that's growing too much will hit a population wall, and something else will fill the void, until there's balance. That's how Mother Nature works, and it makes sense. However, if there's plants in the soil to act as the regulator, then perhaps it's more like a factory setup - so long as the cars are moving off the lot, then the assembly line keeps producing, and shipments of parts keep moving onto the assembly line. So long as a plant is growing and demanding nutrients and giving carbon, then the population of bacteria is well fed and making its exudates, and it's up to us gardeners to keep that soil rich then with amendments like: castings, teas, compost, organic fertilizer, etc,. The trouble is, there's always the need somewhere, somehow, for an input. Even with Ruth Stout, we're still adding hay. With 'Back to Eden' we're still adding wood mulch. The idea of the forest replenishing itself and not needing inputs from us, makes sense logically, but also ignores that forests are usually near water-sheds, valleys, creeks, streams, or rivers, and the combination of leaf-litter, insects, larger animals, the entire wide array of God's tapestry of Life, is at work, providing inputs into an incredibly robust system. Still, even in these systems, droughts, ecological imbalance, disease, put the biome into death and recycle mode. Meaning, we as gardeners, as much as we try to make our lives easier - I would like not to brew compost or worm teas because it's more work through the season that's already packed busy - we're trying to sustain year after year of abundance, and that's likely to take inputs. I think permaculture, or restorative agriculture, etc,. the real trick is in trying to make these inputs come into the garden naturally. I'm not sure how well it's going to work, but I spent the Fall and now into the Winter, putting much more animal habitat in my garden, from frog hotels to bat houses, bee nests to ladybug hides. I've dug a berm across the width of my backyard, and have the gutters flowing into this berm, and try to 'hydrate' the soil as permaculture folks call it. I can't imagine that tossing microbiology into soil is hurting anything, but if it's really diminishing returns, then perhaps it's still just easier to keep mulching and cover-cropping the soil.
I have a question/video Idea, I know your stance on eggshells in soil, and i agree, my question, What about taking eggshells or powdered calcium Carbonate, Soaking it in Distilled White Vinegar, and using the liquid added to your plant water to boost Calcium? In my limited chemistry understanding this should convert the calcium carbonate into calcium acetate that is suppose to be high bio-avaible to the plants. I understand that this isnt needed outside in most cases, but I do most of my growing in a grow tent in an Inert peat based media that does not have all the nutrients that are needed. So this question is more about how well it will work in a grow tent setting using inert media.
But in compost tea, the nutrients are dissolved in water, so they’re more easily absorbed, unlike in plain old compost. What about that reason for compost tea?
Okay, I’ve seen enough!!! What is your take on these popular orchid recovery TH-cam videos where the magician takes a dried up, sorry looking Phalaenopsis orchid. Then after making a compost solution comprised of something like; raw crushed garlic, banana peel, cucumber skins etc and the orchid miraculously is resurrected. Can you feed a Phalaenopsis this kind of potion as a regular fertilizer? Thank you and I love you
It works, at what it does, and depending on the situation it can do a lot, or next to nothing in another situation. Long term, compost is superior if added directly to soil with mulch. Short term, immediate results in potted plants with fast growth and flowering cycles, is generally where you see the benefits. Watering your outdoor garden bed? Probably wont do much unless you have poor soil. But then again, how many gardeners are doing accurate soil tests?
I am planning a reaction video so if you have any reels you want me to comment on be sure to dm me! instagram.com/gardeningincanada
Also GIC Crew I am 99.9% sure you have asked me to make this video a million times. 😅
Love this info, would you debunk Comfrey Tea? Also, is there any nutrient benefit of mixing compost into water and then watering, not steeping it like tea?
@@puckingery915absolutely! Added to the list.
Also fire alarm is not a fire alarm… it’s a parrot that is insistent on beeping so the internet can scold me on fire safety.
@@GardeningInCanada I'd love to know your opinion on KNF and the work Chris Trump does out in Hawaii.
@@GardeningInCanada If the parrot has been exposed to an old fire safety alarm in need of a battery it was ingrained. I had one that did a servant's bell at +150dB .. Piercing
We tried homemade compost tea on tomato plants. The treated plants were faster growing and healthier. I'll keep doing what works for me.
probably your tomatos were laking some nutrient, putting compost will work as good or better than just tea.
Same here. I make it out of fresh leafs, fruits and vegetables that go bad and also alpaca poop. I leave it sitting in a bucket for 2 weeks then feed my plants.
@@christiannunez6025that’s not the case in my particular situation. My plants show signs of nutrient deficiencies sooner than the time before I started brewing protozoa centric compost teas. I have to top dress more often now, presumably because the protozoa I’m watering in are consuming my soil bacteria, which makes their constituents into plant available nutrients and opens up habitat for more bacteria. It seems to have sped up the pace of nutrient cycling.
Did the control plants get plain compost or nothing at all? The claim seems to be that compost tea is more trouble than regular compost for the same benefit.
@@laughinggiraffe9176 I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth if you’re just trying to water in nutrients/bacteria. If your situation is more like the one I outline above (brewing for protozoa), it can be worth the effort.
If you just put the compost on top of the soil. Then its tea everytime you water or it rains
Literally just hacked the system 😂
@@GardeningInCanadafor people what live in areas with wild animals, this often is not a possibility. I personally live in a highly forested area. My landlord will not allow me a compost bin because every summer we have to fight off field rats, king fishers, & larger predatory animals. Just last summer we lost a duck to a king fisher that had been stalking the rats near the edge of our property.
Paul Gautschi 👍
@@szarahsshow5321 Don't muddle up the discussion by saying you can't have a compost bin at your place. That's a separate issue entirely.
*Finished* compost does not attract pest and vermin any more than the native soil does.
Very few gardeners ever make enough compost to cover their entire gardens anyway; they're bringing some or most of it in from other places every year. So the "compost piles attract pests" argument is completely irrelevant here.
@@socloseagain4298 it's not for everyone, but there is definite merit in that "Back to Eden" approach. Anytime you can just let organic material break down in place, you're off to a good start.
Why do humans make things so complicated. Take the stuff and spread it on the ground and mix it into the soil. Nature, as always, will do the rest.
As someone who has to fight field rats every year, and has to worry about the wild animals in the forest around me… that’s not really an option for everyone. People who do something different than you aren’t always “making things more complicated” but rather, have different variable they need to account for. Just something food for your thoughts.
@@szarahsshow5321 viv la differance!
@@szarahsshow5321 why you worry about animals? mature compost should not attrackt any animals.
@@christiannunez6025 they've been going on and on about pests and vermin in the compost *pile.*
That's a completely different topic than simply top-dressing with *finished* compost.
Yes! Nature has many years of experience after all!
You mentioned algae being beneficial in soil. That is a little surprising to me as many people in the houseplant community are so scared of it ever showing up in their clear plant pots claiming that algae can rob potted plants of nutrients. I never believed it was harmful to the plants and never cared about it showing up in my pots. I think a new video on algae would be fantastic!
I don't think this is a fair criticism. I should say the evidence for the benefits of compost tea is very limited, but you didn't go over any studies at all. There are studies showing that it is effective as a preventative for diseases in greenhouse, and pathogens in lab experiments, even anaerobic compost tea. Of course, like most ideas in plant science, this doesn't necessarily mean it will work in the field conditions. As you mention, soil bounces back to its "natural state", but it's more nuanced. Ecosystems are robust, just like living systems, meaning you can perturb the system (to a degree) and it will still be able to maintain itself.
It is not really about increasing the amount of living in the soil, as you claim. If we are just arm-chair theorizing about compost tea, I like to think it as an inoculation. If you were to spread some edible mushroom spores in your backyard, it is unlikely you will end up with the intended mushrooms. But if you inoculate enough logs with lots of mycelium, before the logs were dominated by another organism, and try to maintain conditions favorable to your fungus, your chances are high.
In theory, compost tea might act similarly. Perhaps the beneficial microbes can't survive too long in the real environment, but you might still get benefit by regular applications, kind of like buying beneficial insects. Or maybe you are adding someone new to the system, and one-time application is enough. For some reason that microbe wasn't in the soil or at least some portion of the soil. We believe a pathogen can be introduced, right? Soil doesn't always get rid of it, sometimes it becomes a part of the system.
I believe agriculture is all about nudging the system to be favorable to us. Soil keeps on living, animals and plants too, but we want them to live in harmony with us. Our sciences are too far from understanding how these systems really work. I don't know if or when or what kind of compost tea can be helpful. And I like your analogy, similar to brewing, fermenting, culturing, there are probably lots of ways to go wrong (and you can't directly know if it went wrong like you would by tasting your wine).
But I believe trying to convince people this is a question worth investigating is a better approach than dismissing it because it's too hyped.
I did stumble on a few done on vermicompost teas. But none are peer reviewed that I have seen, that’s what makes me hesitant to consider the studies. Trials and papers are something anyone can cook up and publish. Not saying it’s not valuable and a place to spring board conversation but it’s technically not hard evidence. Or I guess I should say accepted by the scientific community
@@GardeningInCanada right. Peer review and corroboration are the key here. Literally anyone can try an "experiment" once and claim it works. Generally when youtubers and various gurus (and people trying to sell you this or that garden elixir) make claims like that, you find all sorts of glaring problems with their methodology and data collection. The kinds of things that would get them failed in a high school science project. 🙃
I've studied soil science for five years. The scientific literature does not support this.
@@racebiketuner it doesn't support what exactly? I stated different hypotheses about how microbes from compost tea might interact with soil and plants, also saying this is something we can't tell with our current understanding.
My “medicinal” plants are now thriving thanks to compost tea. Thank you for the content you’re awesome!
One summer, my father-in-law made several 5 gal covered buckets of anerobic compost from kitchen waste; stunk to high heaven. After summer months entering into fall we decided to empty the watery concoction onto the ground under the canopy of a 12"+ cal tree. In the next few weeks we noticed that the entire tree had noticeably very deep, dark green foliage, which eventually changed colors in the fall weather. We only did this once but I recall that tree didn't have anywhere near that dark vibrancy before or after that. The tree had no sign of distress that I'm aware of. I'm not sure but (as he was retired) he may have juiced the compost with other things as he was a mad-garden scientist...I never asked what he put into it.
Interesting!!
That is not "compost tea," specifically not aerated compost tea.
That's a simple extraction; people have been doing it for centuries. It's like making "comfrey tea" or "weed tea." Literally any organic material will work for that to some extent.
It's a fertilizer for sure; that liquid will definitely have nutrients and minerals in it. But it won't have much if any beneficial microbes, which is the entire point of making aerated compost tea.
The trouble with anaerobic plant/manure/food waste teas used as fertilizer is, you don't really know what you've got. In terms of NPK and micronutrients, etc. Unless you actually test it.
So you may or may not be giving the plants enough (or possibly too much) of any given nutrient at any given time.
I'm not saying don't do it; I've been using it for several years. In my experience plants react to it about the same as they do to standard liquid organics like fish emulsion. So yeah, it works, it's just sort of hard to pin down exactly how well it works, because the batch of comfrey (or kitchen scrap) tea I made may be completely different from the batch my neighbor made.
BTW, just leave the bucket covered for at least a few months, and then it won't stink anymore. The nasty "sewage" smell comes from the anaerobic bacteria breaking everything down. It's bacteria farts, sort of. Anyway, once they eat up all they can, they simply die off... and the "tea" is done. I make a barrel full every spring and don't use it until the following spring.
I love how you misrepresented every single bit of it. Like for example "when you apply it in a sunny, warm day". And then proceed to completely discard foliar application just based on that. When in reality, people who make compost tea apply it at dawn or dusk.
I'm not a proponent of compost tea, but you are not making good arguments against it. Sounds more like you made your mind before even starting, and then tried to find anything to say against it.
You must be new to the channel… I don’t believe in gardening rules… if you are going to use it regardless of what I think you should use it the hypothetically best case scenario…
The only fertilizer I use for my seedlings in my grow room is a combination of vermicompost / aged hot compost extract. Take a handful of each, put in a mesh bag, massage the bag in a 5 gal bucket of warm water with a dollop of molasses for a minute or so, then water my plants. The mud left over in the bag goes back into a worm bin.
I also make a couple few 5 gal buckets of fermented comfrey "tea" each year, sometimes I aerate it before applying to my soils to get the stink out.
Enjoy your videos. Stay Well!!!
Wonderful!
Is you grow room indoors? Would you have any concerns about a vermicompost tea extract used in houseplants or microgreens?
@@joshoooway My grow room is inside, would have no reservations whatsoever to use on either. I use finished leaf mold for growing wheatgrass for the worms in the winter, I use the vermicompost extract for that too.
Stay Well !!!!
@@brianseybert192 you grow wheatgrass specifically for the worms?! I was going to use the vermicompost to grow wheatgrass for me and my guinea pigs, but I hadn't thought to grow wheatgrass for the worms too!
Thanks for this.
I would add to worm tea / weed tea, that you look into JADAM (and their Liquid Fertilizer).
It's from South Korea (son of the guy who created KNF), and he goes anaerobic too, and iirc he tests regularly for quantity of bacteria / microorganisms :
I use compost tea for indoor gardening to reduce bugs from topping with raw compost from the outside that's sure to bring gnats and other annoyances into a sterile tent.
Dried "compost tea" microbial inoculants are hugely beneficial when growing in a sterile medium like coco coir. Compost tea isn't "bad" it just depends where and how you use it.
I would say in my time farming you without a doubt see happier plants with a well made compoat tea. I tend to use as a treat for my plants but not for actual sustinance. I have noticed it being helpful in acute situations to "steer" the biology towards fruiting or flowering. I have seen the side by side difference in yield and overall chemical composition of the plants as well. I like to think of it more like how yogurt or kobucha has "transitory" benefits in the intrim, but quite often isn't enough to actually colinize the space. We actually love to feed our soil (these are no-till beds) aerobic compost tea as the aerobic microbes actually die going into our (balanced) anerobic system and become a food source for the microbes already dominating the soil. And we are doing this in comerical production as well so at the end of the day the sales and yield don't lie. But I also understand this is on a case by case basis.
I’ve been using it for about a month now on my indoor plants. I keep my indoor plant outside during summer, then bring them in when I start to smell October air. They’ve already been doing better inside with low light & compost tea than they were doing in the summer sun.
In 66 years of farming , I would say without a doubt my best sources of information have been agricultural universities, extension offices and papers published in peer-reviewed journals.
Biggest lie told to gardeners? Obviously, you've never read a seed catalog.
LOL fair.
I have to disagree the "fetid swamp water" that I make (from David the good channel) definitely does benefit my plants and I see it in the yield- it literally cured the fungal infection on my dwarf apple trees! I believe my buckets have both aerobic and anerobic bacterium- the buckets freeze up during winter, thaw out, i only use rain or filtered water and top it up- only thing i add is some epsom salts yearly. So i see results and will continue to use it- it really helps my crops fend off diseases, i companion plant too, this is a game changer, especially attracting the predator benfit insects. Ps. I use a hand pump spray under pressure, long handle and spray right down by the stem.
Honestly if it’s working don’t stop!
Have you considered that it might just be the Epsom salt that is helping?
Love your channel!!!! I am learning and also confirming things I had thought over the years. Total nerd here. As a life long organic gardener and mushroom cultivator, I am firm on composting, no teas. If I want more microbes I ferment wood chips and add them to my compost. Although I am slightly selective in what I add to my compost as I'm looking for relative nutrient profiles combined to make the whole as well as composition and aeration. Spent mushroom blocks make a great addition to the compost pile as well.
🙏🙏
This past spring I put some biochar in a couple of buckets. I added a liter of liquid fish fertilizer to each one, topped them up with water, and put lids on them for about 3 weeks. Oh dear god, the smell when I opened them up was something god himself couldn't have come up with. I spread it out over where I was planting tomatoes and rototilled it all in. The smell disappeared quite quickly. Even though May and June this year was pretty much just an extension of late winter, I had a GREAT crop of tomatoes. I've never tried this compost tea stuff, and probably won't now after seeing your video, but I will be doing my stinky fish biochar thing again for sure.
It stunk because it was full of living anaerobic bacteria. In a manner of speaking, they "fart" a lot... and their "farts" smell like sewage.
It stopped stinking when you applied it because oxygen and possibly the sunlight killed off those bacteria.
If you just leave it in covered in a bucket for a few months, the anaerobic bacteria will have eaten up everything they can and will simply die off naturally... then the tea doesn't stink anymore. I mean it still has an aroma, but it won't be like that giant whiff of raw sewage when you open it.
I love your videos but I have to disagree. The biggest lie told to gardeners is what every is brand new gotta have at the garden centers in the spring!
LOL you win 🥇 that’s hands down 110% true 😅
Most organic centric companies like buildasoil don't even recommend compost teas anymore. My grandma poors milk into her soil for her tomatoes and disagrees with everyone too. Doesn't make it true. This woman spent years getting an education in soil science and yet, some random person online knows more because vibes
@@superkoopatrooper4879I think op is in disagreement about "the biggest lie" not the actual contents of the video lmao. In other words, a joke.
Some grain farmers have good luck with compost tea (Johnson Su)
I agree, gardening is an inexpensive hobby if you aren't doing it just to keep up with the Jone's.
I could be wrong, but my understanding is that microbes are naturally already at capacity for a given environment. Adding microbes through a tea application might spike the population temporarily, but once the food source in the tea is consumed they die off, leaving you with the same amount in the soil that was already there.
Yea that’s the same as a temporary microbe patch up. You have high seasons and low seasons.
@@GardeningInCanadaYeah. When you see operations that are relying heavily on compost teas, they're using a LOT of it, several times a year. Sometimes even weekly.
It doesn't make any sense. If your soil is healthy, you really shouldn't have to top off or boost the microbial population all the time.
It seems to me to be, in practice, the equivalent of using soluble synthetic fertilizers constantly like industrial ag does. I mean yeah that works to get a crop every year... but it's not doing a lot for your soil. It's more like just running a giant hydroponic system - you have to replace everything every grow cycle.
The big difference there is that regular applications of synthetic fertilizers do in fact give measurable results. I'm still not convinced that regular application of compost teas does much of anything at all.
@@DogSlobberGardens-i7f I'm a market farmer, but not the type that make TH-cam videos. I use 10-10-10 and compost at planting, unless it is a root crop, then it's straight composted chicken manure. If you use synthetic and organic nutrients you get super plants. I hardly have any insect issues with this incredible duo. I have basically married conventional and no-till on my farm. It works and I get massive yields! Screw an ideology.
Microbe saturation has many benefits. More microbes means more rapid decomposition of soil organic matter and their exudates help dissolve the minerals in the soil to turn mineral dust into plant nutrients. All those microbe bodies become plant food as well.
@@intothevoid3962 Link a study or shhhhhh.
i am part of the disagree camp. i make my own compost and vermicompost and makes a very good tea. a good blend will be esential in bringing life into dead soil. and for me you eventually are topped off in the beds and cant add anymore compost directly (i dont have the 6-12" of space in my raised beds like you lol) but i am able to make my blend of tea all year long.
That’s awesome. Honestly if you like it keep doing it! Zero rules to gardening 🧑🌾
oh, please do "dynamic accumulators" next - comfry, etc
Put it on the list !
Yes please. I've used comfrey plus weed tea for several years but there seems to be much debate as to the real benefits.
I'm new to gardening and looking into this subject deeply so yes please I need this information in my life ❤❤❤
Sweet! I'm looking forward to it. I have a tree nursery and get asked all kinds of questions during consultations. There are so many "feelgood" solutions out there created by permaculture and biodynamic gurus that just need to be set straight.
The funny part is, ALL plants are "dynamic accumulators." That (and photosynthesis) is just how they grow.
Whether or not comfrey is really any better than, say, red dock or turf grass or common weeds, at "accumulating" nutrients from the soil, is unclear to me. There are a lot of wild claims, but I haven't seen much actual data.
We do grow comfrey and make a tea fertilizer out of it, but only because we also use the comfrey for herbal products and rabbit/chicken feed. If not for that I'd just use grass/weed tea, because in my experience it seems to work just as well as comfrey-based fertilizer.
I have two separate finished batches of tea fertilizer ready for testing - one was made with comfrey only and the other with all sorts of weeds and grass, at the same time. I just need to find a lab that will test them properly.
Our compost system is metal lined with three bins all sloping towards one end. At the end I have it drain into a sheet metal gutter that is over a bucket. Now when it rains and the compost pile has too much water, the nutrients are no longer lost to the surrounding forest. They end up in my bucket. That excess compost leachate in the bucket I can include with the normal watering to whichever plants I want. So far (this Fall) it seems to benefit the plants I fed. The system is still new at not yet a year old. The leachate is a deep brown that comes out. Probably consists mostly of liquid worm castings. There is a ton of red wigglers in there.
That's an extraction. Which is great, and you're wise to make use of those leachates, but it's not the same as the hype about "compost tea."
What folks actually mean when they say "compost tea" is *aerated* compost tea, where you use a bubbler or pump to push more oxygen into the water, to boost bacterial growth as the finished compost steeps for 12-24 hours. Sometimes abbreviated as AACT - actively aerated compost tea.
That’s a very concentrated amount
@@GardeningInCanada Thanks for the comment and the concern. Not to worry, I only add about 1 cup leachate / 1 gallon of water when I distribute the liquid composty goodness to my hungry garden.
@@GardeningInCanada it sure is. Mark's doing it right. A gallon of that leachate can be diluted a great deal, to cover a wide area.
Similar to using an anaerobic plant-based fertilizer such as "comfrey tea", or urine, or fish emulsion for that matter.
Honestly, as a biologist I never co nsidered using compost tea in my garden. Here in Germany there even is a company selling large constructions for the production and distribution of compost tea.
Interesting is it coming into an agricultural application?
There is a study released last week that shows plants treated with compost tea grew more than 100% more biomass than the group control. Compost tea is good to soil.
Can you link it?
@GardeningInCanada BTW if you find any problems in this study, please point it (make a video about it, if you will). The point of my comment is not to discredit you or point fingers at you by any means. I just want to bring more information so we can discuss as a community and learn together. :)
@@BrunoCodeman link, please
There is a study...
@@DogSlobberGardens-i7f I don't think you can post links on TH-cam unless you're the creator these days... 😕
Although i understand all your points, i have a different experience with worm tea. Specifically Used as a drench. Not as a nutritional boost so much as a pest deterant. I have seen it across plant species. Japanese beetle 🪲 seem to avoid plants that have been given the drench. Maybe they dont like the taste of worm poo or it masks the natural smell of the plant. Thoughts? Also yes deep dives are always loved. An updated version of old videos would be appreciated as well. Thank you for anoth great video.
That is so interesting! Honestly there is a very real possibility there is something they do not like. Plants all have natural deterrents against pests of all types. You must have something in there those guys really do not like.
Do you put frass in the worm bin sometimes? I watch your videos and don't see you do that, but I know beetles don't like chitin. I've been throwing in dead bugs here & there to try to increase the chitinase in castings. I have a Japanese beetle problem here so I'll be doing more casting drenches to see if that works.
@laneeacannon1450 good call. There are pill bugs that live in and assumedly die in the worm bin that could be the source of it.
If your soil is too low in organic matter to support a thriving worm population, the chitinase from the castings could have a positive effect on the plant's immune system. In any case, correlation does not imply causation. Type HB nematodes are an effective biological control for Japanese beetles - if you apply them correctly in heavy doses. Most people do not.
Good content. I like that you bring a critical eye, but I have to say that compost and compost tea are not intended to be plant food, and I'm in serious doubt that reported benefits of foliar application of compost tea are purely superstition.
Having worked in commercial AG I've had similar arguments repeatedly with University trained farmers regarding book smartness vs applied common sense in their attempts to balance nutrient loads within a compost pile in order to later feed their plants with it. Feeding plants is not what compost nor compost tea are intended to be used for (though they do help plants to feed), and it's easy to over think the process.
Modern gardening and AG do much to deplete and corrupt soil, air and water culture. Think of compost and compost tea not as food for plants but as inoculation and conditioners of soil culture and air/leaf surface culture via structure (prebiotics/prefungals) and medication (probiotics/fungal exudates, spores and yeasts, and micronutrients) and you'll realize it's amazing value.
Foliar application of aerobic compost tea has immediately visible results in plant vibrancy and disease resistance (anecdotally of course, try it), plausibly due to trace vitamins, minerals and nitrogen, but more likely due to broad spectrum antibiotic and antiviral as well as pre/probiotic properties of fungal/yeast exudates, ensuring positive bacterial culture and excluding disease.
I find the most benefit to my indoor and greenhouse plants (due to their relative isolation from the outdoor environment) from both compost when repotting, and foliar tea occasionally throughout the growth cycle, but even outdoor plants seem to thrive and have less predation with occasional foliar tea application as well as adding compost during planting/tillage.
I would recommend conducting some personal experimentation, and then use your results to work backward from the real world conditions you encounter, rather than rely on thought experiments. Science is great for it's reductive views, but they are also it's "Achilles heel", as they rarely translate cleanly to macro environmental applications due to blind spots and omissions...Forest for the trees etc.
I still liked your video 😉
I beg to differ with you. My research shows that compost tea from finished compost, aerated and given nutrients for the bio organisms makes a difference big difference on revitalizing “worn out soils” the liquid is put into the furrow behind the seed drops then covered with the planters covering devices.
Lots of Agri university research shows positive results.
This technique, allows. Multiple acres to get benefits from one cubic meter of compost and/ or worm teas. But increasing the microbes thousands of times but adding microbe feeding during the “brew”
The fact is the compost in the tea is not going to have enough nutrients to help I have said this forever . I apply compost 3/4” on my beds . I do make LAB and use as a soil drench in the spring after I have solarized my beds
Thank you for this video! I was all pumped to set up a compost tea system this spring after seeing all the videos on it. But this is a well thought out and very informative video on the reasons not too.
Appreciate the time and the science behind your reasons.
I haven’t watched the whole video but I know that worm tea definitely works. It makes the leaves nice and rich and green.
The worm tea is an interesting one because of the waste byproduct essentially causing an immunity response of sorts.
I wasn’t quite sure what do you mean immunity response?
Is worm tea not good to use
I think the point of the video is not to say that your worm tea won’t work but rather to say that just applying the worm compost to the soil would be better
Regards from Australia. I mix my compost, worm tea tea with home made fish tea and grass clipping tea which I spray in the evening on my plants . I never had so healthy plants and the pumpkin leafs are huge . It works for me . Before that I always have put compost in my garden . It did not work that well . My practical experience is for me more impressive than your big since degree . Your words does not feed my family,but the healthy plants do
It's helpful u give the articles and details. Compost tea seems to help some, maybe it depends on what's in it? As for algae tea, which you recommended, any cheap or free way to make it? Any potential drawbacks w/ algae tea or further resources u recommend?
I thought the point of compost tea was for getting more microbes, but now I'm remembering a video you did on soil microbes, and how quickly the recover after using synthetic fertilizer
I have a question but it is not compost tea related. I use rice water from rinsing rice before cooking to water plants, I get flamed by so many people on reddit/ forum each time I mention it. What's the deal with rice water that I am not aware of as my family have been practicing this for container gardening? And why people are getting smelly, sticky soil doing it but not us? Thank you for your time.
I made an alfalfa tea with alfalfa powder , grain dust and air pump last spring [ smelled good 3-5 day perk ] The tea was only used for watering . I did my own test on my seedlings that I transplanted. After about 3-4 weeks the control plants were getting left behind by the plants that got the tea. After transplanting the tea was stopped and all plants got the alfalfa mixture as a heavy mulch . By mid summer the control plants seemed to catch up but next time there well be no control plants, all well get the tea. I was concerned that the alfalfa might contain a herbicide and that was the reason for the test. I got the idea from watching youtube videos on growing cannabis and those people are very bottom line orientated and not just growing for enjoyment , they also have different opinions on teas working. Do your own test !
Hello Miss Gardening in Canada. I live in South Carolina and one thing we do not have a shortage of is marshland, brackish and salt mashes that apparently Native Americans used for fertilizer. We call it Pluff Mud. Supposedly, the stuff is full of minerals and organic material. Can you one day do a video on this subject?
Ooo very interesting! I will add that to the list.
@ please do. There’s not a lot of information out there, but I’m thinking the stuff has to be loaded with nutrients-and salt unfortunately. 🙏🏿
@@anthonyl.kellyakawritedisw9662 I'm in South Carolina. Yes, you can use our swamp water/mud as a light fertilizer. Have you tried it? It gives the plants a good pop. That pluff mud smells like farts because it's so nutrient dense, haha.
@ I have sweet potatoes growing in a mixture right now. The leaves are so vibrant. What part of SC?
@@anthonyl.kellyakawritedisw9662 I'm in Aiken County at the moment, but I've lived on St. Helene island and in Beaufort. I sell at the Farmers Market in Aiken.
I made compost tea by placing a cotton bag of compost in a pail of water. I kept it there for three weeks, stirring every day. I went to take some out to mix with water for watering some bonsai trees when the cell phone in my breast pocket fell into the bucket and the compost tea splashed into my face and got in my eyes. It burned a little because of chili peppers from kitchen scraps. The cell phone survive and so did I. I will say it had me worried for a little while.
My seedlings in 4 or 6 inch pots are kept in 10x20 trays. When a downpour fills them, I save the nutrient filled water for later use.
One of the things I have personally seen compost tea do Is build soil structure.
I would love to get your take on the JADAM method, and KNF or (Korean Natural Farming) method
Thanks for the video! I make compost tea but its water that ive recollected from my indoor mushroom bed after the excess drips out *i do it fresh cause the extra water drips out minutes after watering
(more so cause its there and the right temperature and a little extra mushroom protiens seems to not harm in my experience)
Ooo yummy! Juices 🥤
Wait the tea goes on the plants? Ohh ive been drinking it wrong
Good info! For the garden just adding compost is definitely supreme. But have a few opinions to consider.
1st off for a garden I would only do a compost extract(nothing but compost, only aerated in water for little time).
Teas just add risk and if you have a good compost there is no need to add food and multiply the microbes. You will have plenty of microbes in a extract and they will continue multiply in the garden, in the best environment. Teas are only handy if you need to cover acres with biology. Then it's worth the risk of adding food like molasses and multiplying the microbes in a tea, but better have some good compost!
Even though not all the nutrients are extracted, very little of that gasses off once soaked into the soil. Also toss that compost you used in the extract right back into the pile, will continue to break down and no loss!
If you have the compost to lay an inch or more down it is the way to go. But I found an extract to be very handy when compost is limited. In my experience you get more out of an extract than a very thin layer / dusting of compost. Go big or go extract! haha. Thin layer of compost oxidizes and gasses off a lot... unless covered with thick mulch I have found.
That's not how I make compost tea. If you get a microscope out and watch you can easily build up microbes.. good and bad if not done right. Earthworm castings, insect frass, molasses and aloe. Air stones. It doesn't need to just set. 💚
I have used worm compost tea for year’s on the garden. It has done great. Because of life one year I didn’t. Garden did so so. No we’re near are good as with the tea. Will continue to use the tea method in my garden. Garden On! 🙂
I have a couple of the compost tumblers, which produce a finite amount of compost. Too little to waste on making tea.
Yea that part is not particularly fun. Many people are running thin on the stuff. You can only make sure much waste.
I haven't watched the hole vid yet but what about weed seeds? I don't do hot composting and my compost is loaded with lawn weeds, that's why I like making a tea.
Definitely would rot the seeds! And 110% knock em out.
On a personal scale, making an anaerobic tea from cut weeds or grass is FAR more efficient than composting them. It's a lot faster, a lot less work, and there's almost no waste. You're not particularly worried about microbes at that point, you're just extracting the minerals nutrients from the plant material.
And yes, any seeds in it will rot regardless of whether it gets hot or stays cool... unlike in a compost pile.
For invasive stuff like buttercups that can grow from a little chunk of old root, breaking them down in water guarantees they can't grow back. Some of those rhizomes can survive a full cycle in a compost pile and still spread out when you apply the finished compost.
I'd love to see a video on how to make a worm farm in a small space(home, small garden/backyard) to make your own worm castings. Thank you for sharing this video. 🥰🌿
The breakdown of the five types of bacteria in terms of oxygen conditions? Totally. Amazing. Subscribed on the spot. Brilliant. Thank you. And. Also. Brilliant to have a detailed breakdown on the science. That has meaningful consequences in the garden. Thank you!
Welcome aboard! 🙏
Oh, my you’ve started a bar brawl in the comments - LOL! Reminds me of Big Bang Theory when the women go to the comic book store and asks Howard “who’s the best superhero?” Howard tells them essentially to never ask that out loud if they wish to avoid WW3.😂
This is helpful to know. I always wondered when people said it has more nutrients, where do they expect them to come from.
I also didn't know about the algae thing but it makes heaps of sense now you mention it (I've often wondered if the algae in the dishes of my outdoor potted plants were harming my garden soil but now I'm not so concerned)
I always thought the benefit to compost tea is so the nutrients are more readily available. We put compost in the rice fields after the harvest so the fields are ready when the rains start before planting. I want to add more before it goes to seed but it will all wash away before the nutrients can feed the rice. Making and spraying compost tea is a good solution. Now just thinking about it, compost tea may be a good alternative to factory fertilizer for aquaponic systems.
Aquaponics is a different solution entirely. Compost tea is not making anything more readily available than you would normally get from a compost.
@@GardeningInCanada I think you missed the point, the compost washes away.
I've only heard of compost tea being used to inoculate degraded soil where it's lost the humus layer.
I thought using compost tea was a way to give a small amount of accessible nutrients to your plants when they need it without burning them with constant fertilizer or burying them compost? Is that not true?
It would be fairly minuet. The concentrations can obviously fluctuate based on how the individual made the tea.
@@GardeningInCanada since you know best..... please do us some tests..... here's why, I make leaf mold soils and regular composts.... I liquefy and aerate them and feed that material out as part of a watering schedule....... these plants always out perform plants just fed water in the same base soil. You "Minuet" conclusion seems illogical given the fully liquefied nature of the medium and the fact that the majority of this aqueous mix immediately penetrates the upper 4 inches of soil...... seriously, if you would show real science rather that lots of good ideas it would be easier to accept some of your conclusions.... because I have seen the opposite of what you suggest..... that's where I get a little hung up and my brain just can't say yes to you.
Im a new, BUT i dont use compost, 1-2 cups fish hydrolysate, 1-2 cups worm Tea and 1-2 cups molasses, every 2 weeks, into pots etc, i have done experiments with pots that i did not add this solution with same exact plants and potting mix, the difference is chaulk and cheese, its to even close... the compost in compost tea must have molasses added or the microbes wont increase then i agree its a waste of time
OMg spelling and grammer. but you get the drift
i can make a video if you want...
Agreed, it seems to theoretical and it’s one more thing to add to your list that isn’t even fun.
Please consider a video addressing glue/paint to “heal” tree wounds. This one drives me nuts.
I have never heard of this AHAH. I will put it onto the list.
@ based on the science of how trees wall off their wounds, it’s absolute rubbish. But every nursery sells the goop anyway. Pet peeve of mine 🙃
So what happens to microbes in silty, seasonally waterlogged soil? Are my populations totally shifting between wet winters and dry summers? Or am I likely to find higher populations of the "don't care" bacteria that persist all year?
If they are shifting, I could see how applying spring compost might kickstart the summer populations.
Last, I would love to better understand the movement of nitrogen through the soil. Does it travel or just evaporate? How far, how fast and under what conditions? In nitrogen deficient soils, is it wise to add things like Urea (Blue DEF, urine) or does it need something else to help it be available to roots?
There are commercial gardens and farms making hundreds of gallons of compost tea at a time, and applying it several times a year.
I have yet to see any data from them showing that it's really worth the effort and expense over the course of a year, or several years.
Ppl do stuff with results. So they have to be seeing some benefit.
Thank you for this... this idea has been bugging me for years! I couldn't understand how it made any sense, yet so many garden influencer types were touting it's awesomeness.
I will do a video on slurries. I don’t think influencers talk about it but I do think that’s what their intent is.
How would compost tea affect things if you added it to the compost? Would this be beneficial?
No disrespect, but it seems you missed the main point. Compost > compost tea. But when you don't have enough compost, then compost tea > nothing.
What I struggle with is you aren’t increasing your volume of nutrients if you put it in water. Running out of compost is running out of compost.
Oh also, nitrogen fixing cyanobacteria are common -- commonly called algae. They will pull N out of the air and put it in the tea.
So what ive been gathering is compost extract goes directly on the the root area and if need be the compost tea goes on the foliage if need be but would it be better to just add the compost tea to the compost pile to add more microbes, and if the compost isn't thick enough around the plants are nutrients limited that's why an extract may be beneficial
Finally the science-based hobby-grade gardening channel I've been looking for. Let the binge watching begin!
Adding sugars to soil sounds like it would feed the bacteria that is already in soil....sugars from fruit, molasses, honey...
It would 😅
The key points are composting plant or worm castings for microbe content is not the main goal and not really worthwhile. It is purely for some nutrients applied while watering that might be in it. I believe any tea should be applied at ground level like you would diluted urine. So, I agree with the observations. Many people after all, are misguided into thinking something is beneficial for the wrong reasons, and talk blasphemy before they start to realize it.
My compost is precious. I'm not going to waste it in a tea!
But what about weed tea (anaerobic) or comfrey tea? I use it mostly to recover nutrients and minerals rather than increasing microbial life.
Please give me the soil scientist's view. Cheers!
Someone else asked for the same video 😆 so definitely on the list!
Yes 🙏 🙏 🙏
I always thought that was the whole point of compost tea - to take a small amount of precious compost and maximize its use. One handful of compost creates a batch of tea that is enough to apply to the whole garden. I see it as a tool to increase microbe population in depleted soils and as a compost accelerant. The problem with these kinds of things is the commercialization and marketing of these products as a do-all solve everything product. Videos like this are very important as they push back against these marketing exaggerations.
@@hatz11 Correct. Aerated compost tea was never intended to replace normal compost or fertilizers. It's almost entirely about inoculating the soil with beneficial bacteria.
The hype around what people *think* "compost tea" is and what it can do has gotten completely out of control.
Scroll through these comments and you'll find several people who assume they're making "compost tea," but they're really just making a simple anaerobic extraction. That's a different thing entirely, and you can do the same thing with weeds or comfrey or fresh manure or a bucket of dead rats.
I agree that if you only have a small amount of healthy active compost, making a tea with it may very well be the most efficient and effective way to use it.
Ok, after making the compost tea, why wouldn't one put the compost from the tea into the garden? I haven't seen a comment about using the "spent" compost used in the tea.
My interest in compost tea would be when watering plants that live in sand. Would soaking rabbit poo in water provide nutrients to the sand without adding volume?
And are you saying that leaving the cover off my gardening IBC tote (therefore encouraging algae growth) would be better also? I just never cared if the water bucket had algae; why would the dirt care about water that's green with plant growth? 😂
I’m nervous to say yes to that only because when we are talking about feces and fermenting. But hypothetically with manures we call it a slurry. The purpose being even application compared to its raw form.
Putting a plant in compost isn't a closed system though
I get a buildup of moss in my raised bed. (VegePod) Should I try to remove it, kill it, or mix it in with the soil?
Thanks for your videos, Ashley!! ❤
Oooo good question! Honestly if it’s not competing I would just leave it. PERFECT soil stabilizer and weed suppression.
@@GardeningInCanada THANK you, Ashley. I *thought* that leaving it in would be okay, and the carrots this year were delicious, even with the moss, so I feel better about it now. Mostly I guess it's a cosmetic thing for me. LOL
I have to disagree on this subject i am growing my most beautiful Tomato plants using compost tea, the leaves are a dark emerald green its quite impressive. and plants are starting to flower. will see how the actual tomatoes turn out. but so far looking good.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on veggie tea?
This past summer I soaked veggies…kitchen scraps, spoiled fruit, etc. in a bucket of water placed in the sunlight. It made a nice slurry.
I’d like your opinion on its benefits please.
Love your talks!
Compost tea is for inoculating the soil (and leaves) with beneficial microbes. Not adding nutrients.
6:12 If you brew the tea for ~24hrs it will remain aerobic. The reason it goes anaerobic is because the microbes multiply and use up the oxygen to breathe.
11:33 Ammonia is NH3, not NH4, and is what gases off in anaerobic conditions. When oxygen is available, microbes change Ammonium (NH4) to nitrite (NO2) and then to our beloved nitrate (NO3) which is of course, fertilizer. So no, an aerobic compost tea will not off gas your nitrogen. You can also tell by the smell - ammonia stinks!
14:04 The biofilm you describe forms in the presence of water but is far more than just water. It's a slime that microbes use to protect themselves, like in dry conditions. They also secrete chemicals called osmoprotectants that help, and sometimes just go dormant to survive.
14:48 Lastly, and most importantly, compost tea is not about adding more microbes. It's about increasing the diversity of microbes. Not just bacteria, but also protozoa, and fungi. It seems you haven't researched the soil food web and how compost tea was originally used to correct imbalances in the types of microbes in the soil, not the total number present.
As someone who gardens and also keeps aquariums, algae grows a hell of a lot better when it has a nitrogen source in the water with it. While I have never been one to take my finished compost and make compost tea, I can still see some benefits from the way I tend to do it. I weed my garden, the weeds go in a bucket, at some point it rains, the weeds turn into compost tea, I dump it on whatever area I think needs more nutrition because it needs dumped somewhere. More times than not, there is some algae in the bucket lol. I also dump my aquarium water in the garden when doing maintenance.
Aquarium water is a wholeeee beast of its own. Most definitely major benefits there.
@@GardeningInCanada It sure is. I also grow a lot of plants in the aquarium. Duckweed for one, which grows like CRAZY. So I always have to trim and thin them out and those go directly into the compost. Duckweed is a "superfood" so I always imagine it gives quite a boost to the compost.
@@carvedwood1953 You're making anaerobic weed tea, which is a fertilizer. That is not the same thing as "compost tea" as we're discussing here.
The whole hype about "compost tea" is really "*aerated* compost tea." You start with finished compost that already contains beneficial aerobic bacteria, and you have to steep it in water with a bubbler or agitation to increase oxygen in the water, and therefore help increase the bacteria you're looking for.
The minute you cut off the flow of extra oxygen, those beneficial bacteria start dying off - so you need to use the tea within hours, not days, to get the most out of it.
None of that matters when you're just letting plant or other organic material rot anaerobically in water. The aim is not to increase bacteria; you're just extracting the minerals and nutrients. In a covered container, it will store and be just as effective a year later. Possibly a lot longer.
@@DogSlobberGardens-i7f thanks for the clarification lmao.
@DogSlobberGardens-i7f so does NO beneficial nutrients leech out of compost during tea making process? Just bacteria?
Do larger compounds like vitamins and their precursors get degraded by the aerobic compost tea process? I have seen many gardeners make teas for a supposed vitamin boost.
Also, do the other macro plant nutrients (P & K) 'gas off'?
The only real vitamin I have seen mentioned the odd time is vitamin B. I can’t remember what the reasoning for it is. But I believe people are under the impression it helps with stress.
A lot of science here. Why do people insist on overthinking everything? I just want to enjoy getting my hands dirty in the garden.
Zero rules. If you want to cook up tea go wild
This science isn't available in a lot of places and some people appreciate the scientific aspects of their favorite hobby. If this isn't your thing by all means you do you, have fun, get your hands dirty, enjoy your garden we love that for you!
Is there a special compost that’s good for cultivating in cannabis? My next grow, I don’t wanna buy any kind of fertilizers or synthetic nutrients. I just want compost and water
Do you do any grafting? I love grafting videos. Cheers from Ottawa🍁
Outdoor? Or indoor plants? I could do a video on either
I think of compost tea as being good for one main set of gardening, namely aquaponic/hydroponic growing systems - which need nutrients in a liquid form. This overall being a path to link regular in ground growing & aqua/hydro paunic growing systems.
Please do a video on the home biogas bag system. If you have tea, how can you make it safe? Love th3 nerdy bacteria breakdown.
I'm confused, if NH3 is converted into Nitrate's, what's the big loss, most compost tea's are to accelerate a bacteria or fungus in the rhizosphere arent they?
Some definitely stays in the system! Your losses are based on environmental conditions. And honestly not all soils are built equal some will give up N to leaching and volatilization easy others not so much.
I'd heard that for compost teas and the like, that the benefit for disease control is due to quorum sensing in the microbes. Dr Christine Jones has a video on it.
The idea being that bacteria often only start to manifest their effects (harmful like many diseases, or beneficial like nitrogen fixing) when there is a sufficient number of them which the bacteria know by way of quorum sensing.
Compost tea dissolves the sensing molecules and let's you apply them over a larger area to boost/dampen certain signals
Now I'm worried about how dangerous the "tea" or liquid runoff from my vermicomposter might be.... I've slathered it onto my fruit tree trunks with some other stuff, testing out Dr. Garrett's (The Dirt Doctor) tree trunk goop idea. With my bare hands. And definitely wiping hair out of my face while I'm at it 😂
I've also been storing it in clear jugs.... should I be storing it in opaque jugs? Can I even store it long term at all, or would the anaerobic conditions inside jugs kill off the beneficial organisms in it?
That’s a bit different because it’s not a diluted water solution. That’s a legitimately dense product that is leaching out. So I can guarantee that nutrient and even microbes per litre is significantly higher in your juice.
Elaine Ingham and the soil food web school may beg to differ, foliar spray case studies have been done with shadowing microscopy verifying results of highly effective prevention and yield increase vs a control crop
Yes, Dr. Elaine Ingham, Nicole Masters, John Kempf, Matt Powers, Graeme Sait, and an army of good long time practicing soil scientists and successful farmers would disagree with this video. I disagree too, and so does my microscope! Properly brewed tea exponentially multiplies biology… unless you brew it too long and they runout of food and die. It needs to be applied at the optimal time. I’ve taken Dr. Elaine’s course and have seen many benefits from well made tea made from excellent compost. You simply can’t make or accumulate enough compost to cover a 10,000 acre farm, but with compost teas and extracts, you can!!!
@garthwunsch7320 but do you truly believe the average layman to have the knowledge and ability (and/or taken a course) necessary to brew a tea in the aforementioned "proper" manner?
Never made sense to me and after forgetting about some seaweed I'd gathered from the nearby shore in a bucket that quickly filled with rainwater, I have never been temped to make any kind of plant "tea" ever again. I make plenty of compost though, which makes perfect sense. I'm still happy to gather seaweed, chop it up and add it compost or just as a mulch.
I have a worm bin but I can't be bothered to make tea. I feel I get as much benefit just top dressing and watering in.
I like the controversy of your video title.
You mentioned lack of yeast in soil.
Should a handful be thrown in for benefit?
I’ll do a video on this! It’s actually a really interesting topic
Yeah, I don't know who is making those claims about more nutrients but they're obviously wrong. I think there needs to be conscious application for the intended purpose. I tend to use compost teas as an inoculant for biochar with soil samples from local forests, or a nutrient transfer method when you cannot apply compost directly.
I use my compost tea in conjunction with anaerobic ferments, it seems to be working very well so I'll have to watch your video and see your science behind the logic.
If it works don’t change it up!
@@GardeningInCanadaI finished watching the video and you make a lot of good points.
What I currently do is make an aerobic compost tea with a couple extra ingredients. I use it mainly as a soil drench... My soil has biochar and a nice mulch on top. It's my understanding, but I don't know, that the biochar will help create pockets that the microbes will thrive on/in , like housing. But that could be an old wives tale lol.
Anyways I also add broken down anaerobic ferments, I add flowers to one bucket I add green to another let those breakdown use one for Bloom use the other for nitrogen.
In my opinion ,no science backing this just observation, I use the increase microbes from the compost tea which thrive under my mulch on the biochar to break down the anaerobic ferments quicker.. and when the microbes have eaten their fill and start to die off they just break down into another food source.
Good video by the way I have always been wary of foliars and using a compost tea as one doesn't make sense after watching your video, thanks.
Wait... Do you have a Ceiling Bird investigation... ???
3:17 & 3:22
Less than 2 minutes in I paused to read a few comments which lead me to do my own investigation, which following a quick survey concludes it would be a waste of time, which saved me about 10 minutes to write this comment at a leisurely pace.
What about vermicompost teas and extracts? Aside from higher amount of beneficial microbes than normal compost, I have also heard there are beneficial plant growth hormones in worm castings that become more available when brewed into a tea. And also have heard that there can be beneficial fungi in the worm castings that may not be present in native soil and is worth inoculating the soil with. Do you think vermicompost is still worth brewing into an aerated tea (or even worth mixing with water for a quick extract), or should I stick to just adding solid worm castings directly to the soil?
No to be all "appeal to nature" but what would be the thing that plants need that wont be available in their natural habitat, soil, but will be in water? Unless you have a specific reason to try something or just enjoy tinkering don't worry about it. There are a thousand supposedly amazing things for our garden/plants, everyone swears by a handfull of those but no one's handfull is the same. I think it says more about gardeners than gardening, we're curious and like to try stuff.
@@harrybrandelius7816 Well with vermicompost tea, I'm mostly trying to stretch a small amount of the beneficial substance accross a wider area, since worm castings are usually produced in much smaller volume, and can't be applied as liberally as compost when in solid form.
So my thought is mostly that the vermicompost tea is a concentrated source of plant horomones with the added benefit of a short term microbe boost. For example, when rooting cuttings, I use a rooting horomone as well as an aged vermicompost or vermicompost tea. Or if a tree looks partiuarily unhealthy, i use a concentrated vermicompsot tea to hopefully outcompete the pathogens and kill them off in the short term.
In "Teaming with Microbes" the book ends, after all the soil science, with an entire chapter dedicated to using compost or worm tea as amendments. There's plenty of empirical evidence to suggest it works for many, and a solid hypothesis in stating that putting a soup of micronutrients into the soil could act as an inoculate, or the start of a culture. However, in your previous videos, I get your point about how soil will basically hit an equilibrium, the stuff that's growing too much will hit a population wall, and something else will fill the void, until there's balance. That's how Mother Nature works, and it makes sense. However, if there's plants in the soil to act as the regulator, then perhaps it's more like a factory setup - so long as the cars are moving off the lot, then the assembly line keeps producing, and shipments of parts keep moving onto the assembly line. So long as a plant is growing and demanding nutrients and giving carbon, then the population of bacteria is well fed and making its exudates, and it's up to us gardeners to keep that soil rich then with amendments like: castings, teas, compost, organic fertilizer, etc,.
The trouble is, there's always the need somewhere, somehow, for an input. Even with Ruth Stout, we're still adding hay. With 'Back to Eden' we're still adding wood mulch. The idea of the forest replenishing itself and not needing inputs from us, makes sense logically, but also ignores that forests are usually near water-sheds, valleys, creeks, streams, or rivers, and the combination of leaf-litter, insects, larger animals, the entire wide array of God's tapestry of Life, is at work, providing inputs into an incredibly robust system. Still, even in these systems, droughts, ecological imbalance, disease, put the biome into death and recycle mode. Meaning, we as gardeners, as much as we try to make our lives easier - I would like not to brew compost or worm teas because it's more work through the season that's already packed busy - we're trying to sustain year after year of abundance, and that's likely to take inputs.
I think permaculture, or restorative agriculture, etc,. the real trick is in trying to make these inputs come into the garden naturally. I'm not sure how well it's going to work, but I spent the Fall and now into the Winter, putting much more animal habitat in my garden, from frog hotels to bat houses, bee nests to ladybug hides. I've dug a berm across the width of my backyard, and have the gutters flowing into this berm, and try to 'hydrate' the soil as permaculture folks call it. I can't imagine that tossing microbiology into soil is hurting anything, but if it's really diminishing returns, then perhaps it's still just easier to keep mulching and cover-cropping the soil.
I have a question/video Idea, I know your stance on eggshells in soil, and i agree, my question, What about taking eggshells or powdered calcium Carbonate, Soaking it in Distilled White Vinegar, and using the liquid added to your plant water to boost Calcium? In my limited chemistry understanding this should convert the calcium carbonate into calcium acetate that is suppose to be high bio-avaible to the plants.
I understand that this isnt needed outside in most cases, but I do most of my growing in a grow tent in an Inert peat based media that does not have all the nutrients that are needed. So this question is more about how well it will work in a grow tent setting using inert media.
Check the ph. Vinegar is used as an organic weed killer.
I am interested on hearing your views and opinions on electroculture
Good video, there are so many gardeners spreading urban myths on here about everything.
But in compost tea, the nutrients are dissolved in water, so they’re more easily absorbed, unlike in plain old compost. What about that reason for compost tea?
Good thougjts here.
Okay, I’ve seen enough!!! What is your take on these popular orchid recovery TH-cam videos where the magician takes a dried up, sorry looking Phalaenopsis orchid. Then after making a compost solution comprised of something like; raw crushed garlic, banana peel, cucumber skins etc and the orchid miraculously is resurrected. Can you feed a Phalaenopsis this kind of potion as a regular fertilizer? Thank you and I love you
Is it a true compost? Or is it raw produce in water for a bit? Because if it’s the later that’s doing zero
It works, at what it does, and depending on the situation it can do a lot, or next to nothing in another situation.
Long term, compost is superior if added directly to soil with mulch. Short term, immediate results in potted plants with fast growth and flowering cycles, is generally where you see the benefits. Watering your outdoor garden bed? Probably wont do much unless you have poor soil. But then again, how many gardeners are doing accurate soil tests?
Isn't the point of compost or weed tee is that it's like a fertilizer to provide a boost of available nutrients that just works faster than composting
Yes it is. The issue is that compost already is very low in NPK and now you are further diluting it.
How about manure, weeds, or grass clippings steeped in a barrel?
Either aerobic or anaerobic
I need to do a video on slurry’s because that’s a totally different topic.
@GardeningInCanada That would be great, also inoculating biochar by various methods.
Hello from the bottom of Australia 👋