What Is Compost Tea 

In this blog, we will discuss compost teas, Compost Tea is mixing your nutrients with water, air, molasses, and compost/dirt.  You will get better results in what you are growing, and your money will go further. It will take a little more extra time to mix it but well worth it. We will explain the steps of what we use in making our compost tea we use for my tomatoes and beans in the 2021 season. These were some of the biggest tomatoes we ever grew from using this compost tea mixture.

What You Need To Make Compost Tea

You will need

2-5 gallon bucket – You can get this at Lowes for about $3.00 each

A small air pump dual port with 2 air stones – You can get this at Walmart where they keep the pet items at. This is used for fish tanks cost about $30-$40. This is what cost the most, but over time for the results and the money you save well worth it.

Tomato Tone – We get ours at Rural King we buy the 18 pound bag for $15.

Molasses – We get Black Strap Molasses $3-$5 a bottle at Walmart in the baking aisle.

Compost/Dirt

How We Mix My Compost Tea

First we hook up my air pump and air stones and have the pump running and place my air stones in the 5 gallon (18.93 liters) bucket. Next, we will add water to my % gallon bucket and fill it up to about 90 percent full of rain water. Then we add 4 cups (0.95 liters) of Tomato Tone to the water. Now I will add the molasses about 1/4 to 1/3 of the bottle. Then we will add 2-3 handfuls of compost/dirt mix to the bubbling mixture in the 5 gallon (18.93 liters) bucket and cover it with a board. We let this bubble and brew for 3 day/72 hours. Then after the 72 hours, what we do is water it down. We will get my other 5 gallon (18.93 liters) buckets and take 32oz (ca. 1,210 gram) which is a quart of our compost tea mix, pour that into our bucket and fill the rest with the bucket with water. We then stir it and go water 32oz (ca. 1,210 gram) per plant. At the end you will have extra tomato and compost that did not dissolve and is left over, we just throw it back onto my compost pile.

 How Does It Save You Money

The reason this is so much better and saves you money is you are not going through a lot of nutrients. You’re only using 4 cups (ca. 946 cubic centimeters) of Tomato Tone and a 1/4 to 1/3 bottle of molasses, and this mixture can feed up to 350 tomato plants. We only do this 3 times during the summer. We start this mixture the second week of June, our plants have already been in the ground for 1 month (I do add a handful of Tomato Tone to each plant when they first go into the ground). Then we will do it again the first week of July and again about the second to third week of July. So for feeding all our plants we feed 3 times from the middle of June until the end of July, it will cost us less than $20 and will still have some Tomato Tone left over.

Why Is This So Much Better

Why this is so much better is what happens when you add all this together. What happens is the air is activating the live cultures you dirt/compost along with your Tomato Tone. Those live cultures are feeding on the molasses. In turn, when they are feeding on the molasses, they are multiplying more beneficial for your plants. How you can tell this is you will get a froth on top of your mixture that is bubbling, that is why we always let it bubble for 72 hours. You can let it only bubble for 24–48 hours, but 72 hours seem to work the best. When you water your plants, this is an instant release to the plants instead of a slow release since it is liquified now. This also help put beneficial back into the soil also. So for the extra 10 minutes of work, you save a lot more money and get better results from your plants. It can be any plants, we used this mixture on our tomatoes, flowers, and beans. Also, you are adding good beneficial back into your soil. One drawback is weeds like this mixture too, LOL.