Compost Tea - Looking for Instructions, Recipes, Application Strategies, Etc.

Just like the title says, I'm looking for resources for making my own compost tea. Please show me the way!

My own favourite version of "compost tea" is to take worm castings from my worm farm, put them into a watering can, and then part fill with a firm spray from the hose in order to "liquify" them. To this I sometimes add urine, fish emulsion, seaweed solution, or even blood and bone. I'd suggest you could do the same with compost, though I do believe that the boost of additives (especially nitrogen) would be of benefit.

A more traditional version is the old drum with a lid to which you add a bag (such as hessian or shade cloth, tied and tethered at one end) full of weeds, compost, manure, etc, a dash of urine, and water, seal the lid and leave to ferment for a few weeks and then apply diluted (1prt tea to 9prts water is generally a safe bet, though use the colour of the resulting brew as a guide, better to always be on the cautious side initially till you find the brew your plants prefer). Be warned, the smell can be a little...nasty.

Cheers.

Your compost or worm tea should not smell bad, that is a sign that it is anaerobic. The main benefits of compost/worm tea comes from the aerobic microorganisms that are reproducing at an astronomical rate. Doubling every seven minutes is what I've heard. Get a cheap aquarium pump and an airstone and some aquarium tubing to fit the pump and airstone. Put your compost into a paint strainer bag and tie up the top. Fill your water container to near the top, I use a five gallon bucket. Pour in an ounce or two of blackstrap molasses. (Food for the microoganisms.) Toss in the airstone and plug in the pump. The worm leachate tea that I make with this method never stinks. If you were using raw manure or minimally composted manure it might stink. If I can't get to the tea in 24 hours I just add a bit more molasses and use it the next day. I think you can likely find a used aquarium pump for cheap at a second hand store. I think that the pump, airstone and tubing cost me about $14 at walmart.

Interestingly, I've done both aerobic and anaerobic versions of compost tea. Last year I filled a trashcan with weeds, a bit of compost, manure, urine... and then lots of water, and let it steep. After a few days the smell was incredible. I dipped my watering can into that and fed all the plants in my greenhouse for months, topping off the trashcan when the level got low. It worked wonderfully. I had rich, lush plant growth.

Alternately, I bubbled compost tea and used that. It worked fine as well, but the results weren't as amazing as that anaerobic stuff. I'm not sure why.

I did an article for Mother Earth News a week or two ago on "fertilizing organically on the cheap:"

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/fertilizing-organically-cheap-zbcz1305.aspx#axzz2Ui9Q2An3

I should have gone further into compost tea. Basically, the organic tank mix I make sits in my sprayer for a day or two before I use it. I do this to let it all steep, though I don't know if it's necessary.

Here's my recipe:

1) Scrape up the droppings in the chicken tractor and put them in a gallon bucket, fill it to the top with water, let it sit overnight.

2) Day 2: Dump the one-gallon bucket into a five gallon bucket, fill 3/4 full with water. Put it on to aerate (cheap little air pump for a 10 gal aquarium).

3) Go scrape up half a gallon of well rotted leaf litter from the woods behind the house. Sprinkle it over top of the aerating manure tea. After a couple hours of aerating, the offensive smell is gone.

4) Day 3: Blend up a half cup of biochar in a quart of water and add it to the aeration bucket. Let this aerate a couple more hours, giving time for the bacteria to move into their biochar condominiums.

I use this full strength on everything in the garden. I only have 3 chickens in the chicken tractor, so I am only starting out with at most 100 g of droppings.