Preparation and application of aerated compost tea. The use of compost tea in gardening

In the West, organic tea has been used in the garden for a long time, but in our country this technology is still gaining popularity. What is aerated compost tea (ACC) and how to make it properly at home?

Compost tea is a mature compost infused with water. It can be prepared with aeration (aerated) - it is aerated compost tea. Or without her. In the resulting liquid, beneficial bacteria multiply (about 100 thousand species), which heal and cleanse the soil from pesticides, nourish plants and increase their immunity to diseases and pests.

Thus, compost tea is at the same time a fertilizer, a stimulator of plant growth and fruiting, as well as a soil restorer. According to the principle of operation, this organic product similar to EM drugs, but the effect of its use lasts longer. And the cost of such an infusion of compost is much less.

Using compost tea

From late April to autumn, you can water the soil or mulch with compost tea and spray any plants over the leaves. The procedures are carried out at least 3-4 times per season (but not more often than once every 2 weeks). This helps to populate with beneficial bacteria both the soil and the plant itself. Then there will be no room for pathogenic microorganisms.

Plants can be fed with compost tea at all stages of development

In addition, leaves treated with compost tea are better at absorbing carbon dioxide, emitting less moisture, and becoming unattractive to pests.

When processing vegetable, horticultural and ornamental crops, compost tea is pre-filtered on the leaves and then diluted with clean non-chlorinated water in a ratio of 1:10. For every 4 liters of tea, add 1/8 tsp. vegetable oil for better adhesion of the liquid to the leaves.

The compost tea is sprayed using a bottle with a lid that has holes in it. It is better not to use a spray bottle, as high pressure is detrimental to many beneficial microorganisms.

The concentration of compost tea for watering plants under the root should be 2 times more, that is, ACC is diluted with water without chlorine in a ratio of 1: 5.

Any plants can be watered with compost tea. But first it must be filtered and diluted with water.

How to make DIY compost tea

This is organic fertilizer can be cooked in different ways. We offer classic recipe aerated compost tea.

The volume of liquid obtained is designed for a small amount of seedlings or container plants. To process the entire garden, the dosage of all ingredients must be proportionally increased.

You will need:

• glass jar with a volume of 3 liters;
• 2 liters of fresh water without bleach (rain, melt, well water is suitable);
• 10 ml of any leavened wort or a sweetener (eg molasses, syrup, preserves);
• 1 cup mature compost
• any pump or compressor (for example, aquarium).

Pour water into a jar, add sweetener there, stir to dissolve in water. Then add compost, put the compressor in there and turn it on. For preparation of ACC at room temperature the aeration system should work for a day, and in hot weather (at an air temperature of about 30 ° C), 16-18 hours is enough.

Aerated compost tea produces a lot of foam

While the compressor is running, immerse the plant seeds packed in a gauze bag in the water. So you will at the same time carry out the bubbling.

Correctly prepared ACC exudes the smell of fresh earth or bread. The resulting liquid must be used within 4 hours after the end of the aeration.

If you can't find an aeration system, make compost tea without one. Of course, there will be fewer beneficial microorganisms in this product than in ACC, but you will still get a good organic fertilizer.

Fill a 10 liter bucket with compost 1/3 full. Pour in non-chlorinated water almost to the brim so that the liquid does not spill out with frequent stirring. Mix the resulting mass well and leave in a warm place for a week. At the same time, stir the infusion several times a day. After this time, strain it through cheesecloth and use for watering and spraying plants.

Compost tea nourishes your plants well and is an excellent soil tonic. Compost tea is preferred over fertilizer tea. Conservative organic gardeners prefer compost tea over fertilizer tea because the former provides more nutrients and is believed to have more integrity. In a general sense, this is not the tea that you want to drink or inhale, but the one that your plants eagerly absorb.

Steps

Rotting green plants

This is a fairly straightforward method and generates more wastewater than compost tea, but since it has been around for a long time it may be helpful if you have fresh, leafy plants to use.

Collect foliage. Good for this: comfrey, nettles or seaweed if you are near the beach.

Fill the bucket with water.

Add foliage to the bucket and let it rot.

Pour the mixture over the plants.

1. Use fertilizer compost.

   Place the compost in a container:

   Use it. To use compost tea, pour it through a watering can or spray bottle. The color of the compost should be light yellow, if it is darker, then dilute it with water. Compost tea can be safely used for the entire garden. It is especially useful for newly planted or transplanted plants, for weak plants that need a tonic, for potted plants throughout the growing season, for lawns and vegetable beds.

   Re-soaking. If you like, you can re-soak the compost to make more. Each time you need to add a little new compost from the fertilizer. When the compost you have soaked is no longer needed, it can be used as a mulch or as a soil additive.

Compost spray

Compost spray is made to fight plant diseases. This method has been used successfully for decades. Again, this method was taken from the book "Composting" by Tim Marshall.

Aerated compost tea (ACh)

This is the best method for using compost as a liquid extract (tea), but it takes some effort. The previous method effectively diffuses nutrients and bacteria from the compost into your garden. However, with the ACC method, you will be able to increase the number of germs and bacteria just before application. The method is borrowed from the book "Composting" by Tim Marshall.

Ventilate your compost before using it. This means that it must be thoroughly mixed and ventilated during its creation. It should be well filled with “brown” starting materials such as leaves, sawdust or blank cardboard. Adding some forest soil will also increase the amount useful mushrooms, according to Mark Remillard.

• Be careful when scooping up the compost for ventilation to avoid harming the hedgehogs.

1. Use only mature and fragrant compost.

   Place 5-10 liters of fully matured, aerated, and fragrant compost in a 20-liter plastic bucket. Fill the rest of the space with water.

   Add 250 ml of non-sulfur molasses. Transfer thoroughly with compost tea. In cooler weather, add more molasses.

   Leave the compost immersed for 2-3 days. During this time, stir it with a wooden stick. This way, the compost will not settle and float in the liquid. Alternatively, connect a pump for an aquarium with three air stones. It will maintain the oxygen level in the environment.

   • It may sound very difficult at this stage, but it should also be noted that you can hire / rent a fermentation machine if you still need it. However, the aquarium pump is cheap and easy to set up.

2. Smell the compost tea. It should have a sweet smell with a little mustiness. If it smells bad or alcoholic, it means you need to add another air stone to the aquarium pump and some molasses.

   Leave the pump on throughout the fermentation.

   When you are ready to use the compost tea, let the liquid sit for 10 minutes (turn on the pump and do not stir the compost) before pouring the liquid into a spray bottle or watering can. Get started, as the compost tea should be used within an hour after you empty it from the oxygenated bucket. This high oxygen top material is ready to fight the nasty things in your garden by using bacteria to fight plant diseases.

Commercial sources

Buy compost tea. Compost tea can also be purchased from enthusiastic housewives or gardening gurus with a degree in organic gardening. Going this far, you may not really go to the average gardener without a degree in organic gardening and organic business products, but if you're interested, here's what you might think of.

Read about the different methods of making aerated compost tea and the basics of soil microbiology. This can be quite tricky because besides being resistant, human pathogens are about to jump out at you with every move you make until the commercial method is used. It is believed that different nutrients and protective benefits can be generated at different temperatures, as a result of different baits, oxygen concentrations, use of initial compost and fermentation.

Compost tea has long been used by farmers in Western countries, but in our country this remedy is still considered new and not very well-known. It is used to renew the condition of the soil, as well as to improve the quality characteristics of the crop and increase the yield.

You can make this tea yourself. This requires mature compost and regular water. The infusion can be prepared in two ways: by saturating it with air and not saturating it. Infusion with air saturation is considered more beneficial for the soil and flora. Valuable microorganisms reproduce well in it, which further revitalize and nourish the soil, and therefore improve the life of plants. Compost tea is almost one hundred percent protection of crops from harmful insects and many diseases.

The benefits of compost tea

• It is a top dressing.
• Accelerates the growth and fruiting of crops.
• Restores the quality of the soil and nourishes it.
• Much more effective than EM drugs.
• Consists of a large number of microorganisms (up to one hundred thousand living beings).
• It is used for spraying and watering.
• Protects vegetables from numerous pests and the most common diseases.
• The leafy part of the plants is strengthened and the general appearance cultures.
• Strengthens and enhances the immunity of almost all plants and crops.
• Cleans the soil from harmful substances and toxins.

Any soil is a place of life for various microorganisms, but only in compost tea do they live in huge numbers and give a lot of benefit. This new generation organic preparation is able to create favorable conditions for the growth and development of the root system of all plants. Various types of worms in a short time cleanse the soil of harmful substances and form humus. Microorganisms multiply in large numbers and at a rapid pace, feed on each other and create an excellent environment for the full development and growth of vegetable and berry crops.

Spraying is carried out directly on the leaves of plants, which makes it possible for thousands of beneficial microorganisms to settle directly on the plants. This organic product becomes a real protection for vegetable crops from pathogenic microbes. Plant nutrition takes place directly through the leaves. The drug promotes active photosynthesis, less moisture evaporation and greater absorption of carbon dioxide. Spraying leaves an invisible film on the plants, consisting of valuable and effective microorganisms, and does not allow any pests.

Recipe 1

You will need a glass jar with a volume of three liters, a compressor for the aquarium, and also not tap water (you can from a well or rainwater) in the amount of two liters, fruit syrup(you can jam, sugar or molasses) and about 70-80 grams of mature compost.

Recipe 2

A capacity of 10 liters (an ordinary large bucket can be used), a high-power compressor, settled or melt water in the amount of 9 liters, 0.5 liters of compost, 100 grams of any sweet syrup or jam (fructose or sugar can be used).

Pour water with syrup into the prepared container, then add mature compost and install a compressor. Compost tea is prepared within 15-24 hours. It all depends on the temperature of the room in which the container with the solution is located. At a temperature of about 20 degrees Celsius, the infusion will take longer (about a day), and at 30 - it is enough to withstand the drug for 17 hours.

If you follow all the recommendations for making compost tea, it should not have an unpleasant odor. On the contrary, it will smell like bread or damp soil and have a lot of foam. The shelf life of compost tea is minimal - about 3-4 hours. The greatest effect of this drug can be obtained in the first half hour.

Minor changes are allowed in the recipe. Compost can be replaced with topsoil under oak, aspen or maple trees. It contains no less beneficial fungi, worms, bacteria and other beneficial creatures than compost.

If you could not get the compressor or pump, then you can prepare the drug without air saturation. There will be several times less useful microorganisms in such a preparation, but its own beneficial features such a tool also has.

You need to take a large ten-liter bucket and fill it thirty percent with mature compost, and then fill it up to the top with any water other than tap water. After thorough stirring, the solution is left for a week. It is very important that the solution is stirred several times during the day (every day). The drug will be ready in a week. Before using it, all that remains is to strain it through a sieve, cloth or nylon stocking.

You can also use another method of making compost tea with a little air saturation. You don't need a compressor or pump for this. You will need to take a large bucket and install a smaller container in it with holes on the bottom. The solution must be poured into a smaller container and left until the liquid completely seeps into another container. After that, the compost tea is thoroughly mixed and again poured into a smaller container. This procedure can be repeated several times and the liquid will be saturated with air.

Using compost tea with aeration

Such an organic preparation allows you to increase the germination of seeds and accelerate the appearance of the first shoots, if they are placed in a bubbling liquid in a small tissue bag. And they will also be completely disinfected.

This natural remedy is used for watering the soil before planting seeds, as well as for watering seedlings that have been picked. The drug promotes better survival of young plants in new conditions.

Unfiltered compost tea can be used to irrigate mulch or soil in spring beds. This universal liquid is able to "warm up" the soil and add at least two more degrees of heat to it. This will allow you to plant some vegetables 10-15 days ahead of schedule.

Spraying with filtered compost tea diluted with water stimulates growth and accelerates fruiting of fruit and vegetable crops. Such a shower - fertilization is best done with the help of a small plastic bottle and a spray bottle, and you need to add a little to the solution sunflower oil(for 10 liters of the drug - about 0.5 teaspoon).

Before watering, the finished product is diluted with water in a ratio of 1 to 5, and for spraying - 1 to 10. These procedures can be repeated at least 3 times during the entire warm season, and a maximum of 2 times a month.

Compost-based tea is an absolutely independent preparation and cannot replace such useful measures as the use of green manure or mulch, the construction of warm beds. The soil cannot be saturated and do with just one organic preparation. The more organic matter, the better the soil structure and the condition of the crops grown.

Cooking and applying ACC in the garden (video)

However, scientists have found that the roots secrete bait - liquid substances, the "smell" of which rush to nitrogen-fixing bacteria and photosynthetic algae, if nitrogen is required, or symbiotic fungi and bacteria that extract phosphorus from minerals.

The roots of plants are also actively used by coprolites - excrement left behind. After all, they contain deficient trace elements, and in chelate complexes that are easily accessible to plants. In nature, these processes last for centuries, and I need the soil to restore its health after each season, a certain community of soil organisms formed on the site, and that beneficial bacteria live in the immediate vicinity of the roots.

Previously, I domesticated the site according to the rules: I imported tons of clay, sand, black soil, manure, peat. He dug the plot, mixed the soil, poured fertilizers, destroyed weeds. And although after a dozen years the soil turned black, without composting and mineral fertilizers plants on it did not develop well.

Once I read the work of Elaine Ingham and her followers and started studying ACC - activated compost tea. This topic requires many pages in the magazine, so I will only talk about the practical side of using aerated compost tea.

What is aerated compost tea for?

By adding hundreds of thousands of aerobic symbiotic plants to the leaves and soil with compost tea, I am sure that there will certainly be aerobic organisms that will weaken the infectious background and reduce the risk of developing diseases. After irrigating the soil with active tea, all dead organic matter is quickly processed and evenly distributed over the soil. Plants feel better at the same time.

Compost tea is a set of organisms from which the plant will choose the one suitable for the formation of the rhizosphere. As a result, the soil-plant system becomes more stable and reliably resists stress. The microfauna quickly clears the soil from pesticides, herbicides, and heavy metals accumulated over the past years.

Therefore, I do not hesitate to pick fruits in the garden for my grandchildren. Aerobic microorganisms not only protect plants from infection, but also supply them with the most valuable bioactive substances that are absorbed through the leaves. Therefore, the stomata are open longer, carbon dioxide is more actively absorbed and photosynthesis is more intensive.

Aerated compost tea quickly makes the soil lumpy, porous, and increases its ability to retain moisture. That is, the roots are in good conditions... The more stable and diverse the community of microorganisms introduced with ANC, the faster and better quality humic substances accumulate in the soil.

It is also important that the composition of compost tea can be changed depending on the type of soil and cultivated plants.

For example, if I need bacterial tea, I add sugar and simple proteins to the mass.

If you need tea with a high content of mushrooms, I add oatmeal, soy flour, fish broth. To dramatically increase the number of protozoa and nematodes in tea, I soak hay in water for several days and pour hay extract into tea before aeration.

The quality of ACC also depends on what kind of compost (what set of microbes) I use to produce aerated compost tea.

Using compost tea

1. I use compost tea in this way: I disinfect and stimulate the seeds of tomatoes, peppers, watermelons before sowing (I put them in a gauze bag and put them in bubbling tea for 12-24 hours); I water the soil with tea after sowing seeds and seedlings after transplanting (germination and survival rate are excellent);
2. I water the ACC plants once every 2 weeks; I spray the plants on the leaves twice a season to prevent diseases.

In addition, I cultivate the land in the "waste area". I fill it with plant residues with a layer of 10 cm and several times a season, without loosening it or digging it up, I pour it with compost tea. After 2-3 years, you can plant any capricious garden plants on it.

If the soil is completely bare and there are no aboriginal weeds on it, then in the fall I mow dry weeds with seeds from the neighboring overgrown areas and mulch the cultivated garden with them.

Preparing the beds in a similar way, I grow vegetables without mineral fertilizers. The neighbors, who use green manure to improve the soil, laugh that I leave the weeds.

Of course, green manures provide a large biomass of organic matter, but they cannot restore the community in the soil. beneficial organisms and plants. I don’t guess, I don’t select suitable green fertilizers by trial, but I allow the weeds to adapt themselves to the soil, to survive in the competition.

But in order to speed up the process of soil formation, I fill them with mulch and, using a knapsack sprayer, I water the ACC, which contains billions of bacteria and fungi. And they, too, are forced to adapt, entering into symbiosis with the roots of the weeds.

Preparation of activated compost tea

For the preparation of activated compost tea, I use a bedding from rabbits, it contains a lot of compound feed residues. Or I just sprinkle a leaf pile with spoiled compound feed and spill it with water with fish waste. If there is no rabbit droppings, I take leaf litter from under an old deciduous tree (oak, maple, linden, birch) and add grain and fish to it. The compost must be mature (attempts to make tea from unripe manure or rotten grass ended up sadly), that is, it does not smell like rotten fish, but mushrooms or spring soil.

I put the mass (glass) in a three-liter bottle, fill it with settled (without chlorine) water, add malt extract or molasses (40 g) or old jam (2 tablespoons) and turn on the aquarium compressor. After a day, foam begins to come out of the can. The tea is ready when a pleasant bready smell appears. In order for mushrooms to prevail in ASC over bacteria in quantity and types, I add high-quality molasses to the water, a decoction seaweed, fish broth, rolled oats, grated apple (a tablespoon each) and humates (0.5 g per 2 liters of activated compost tea). If the compost tea smells like garbage, it should be poured into the toilet.

I dilute the finished tea ten times and spray it on the soil or leaves as soon as possible (after 4 hours without aeration, the microorganisms will die).

For the production of tea, enhanced by microfauna, I use hay. I put it in water for a couple of days, then decant the liquid into a jar before aeration and bubble it for three days.

Making compost tea - photo

Left: the preparation process. Right, ready-made compost tea. Above photo: Corn grown with ACC (left) and on water.

DIY aerated compost tea (EM formulation)

The topic of aerated compost tea (ACC) has been fond of in the West for more than a decade. We have this technique well described by an experienced gardener Gennady Raspopov. And from personal experience I was convinced that it is worth taking a closer look at tea.

ACC is a solution saturated with effective microorganisms, which is used as a growth stimulator and plant protection against diseases. The fact is that ready-made EM preparations still contain a limited number of microorganisms that exist without oxygen. In nature, the world of microorganisms is much richer, and if you prepare an EM preparation yourself, its composition will be more varied, and therefore more effective.

How to make aerated compost tea

We will need: 1. Old compost (it can even be overgrown with weeds); 2. Beet syrup or molasses (sold in fishing shops) to feed bacteria; 3. Clean non-chlorinated water (preferably spring, river or well);

4. Air compressor with two nozzles (hoses) for an aquarium with 3 liters of water. I cook in a 3-liter glass jar: I pour 2 liters of water, add 20 ml of molasses, lower the compressor spray, turn it on and after a minute add 1 tbsp. compost.

The tea is oxygenated for 24 hours. The finished ACC should have a neutral or spring earthy smell. I filter the solution and use it within 4 hours, because it does not last longer. Therefore, I prepare a new portion every time.

Two liters of ACC is enough for:

• top dressing at the root or on the leaves of 1 weave of tomatoes;
• treatment of 5 acres of plants from late blight (dilute the composition 1: 5);
• stimulating the growth of seedlings after picking;
• feeding indoor flowers;
• disinfection and stimulation of seed germination.
• Results of using compost tea

Previously, I soaked tomato seeds in a solution of Fitosporin and Zircon before sowing for seedlings, but I did not notice any fundamental differences with sowing untreated seeds, so I decided to treat them with ACC.

1.1 tbsp. poured compost into a mesh bag with a drawstring, put one of the hoses (sprayers) of the compressor there. In the same, but smaller bag poured 15 tomato seeds.

3. I put bags of compost and seeds into the jar (I tied the strings from them so that they would not fall into the water).

4. For 24 hours of making tea, the seeds in the bag swelled, overgrown with useful bacteria and compost particles, becoming like fluffy, and at the end they acquired the color of the earth.

5. Sow them into the soil, sprinkling it abundantly with ACC.

6. In the same container with the same soil, sowed 15 untreated seeds of tomatoes of the same variety by dry method.

VERDICT: Both containers with seeds stood side by side in the warmth. After 5 days, the seeds treated with ACC sprouted together, quickly sprouting up to 3-4 cm. And from dry seeds, only on the 6-7th day, the first loops began to appear. So now I use exclusively ACC for seed treatment.

How to make the right compost pit ...

Compost tea has recently become popular among the supporters of organic farming. The technology for preparing this environmentally friendly plant food has spread in many countries, and today thousands of farms use it to fertilize fruit trees, vineyards and crops of various grain crops. What is compost tea, how does it affect the productivity of plants, how to prepare it correctly?

Compost tea is the basis of organic farming

The easiest way to get a beautiful front lawn

You, of course, have seen the perfect lawn in the movies, in the alley, and possibly on the neighbor's lawn. Those who at least once tried to grow a green area on their site will no doubt say that this is a huge work. The lawn requires careful planting, care, fertilization, watering. However, only inexperienced gardeners think so, professionals have long known about an innovative tool - liquid lawn AquaGrazz.

Despite the fact that compost tea has been talked about not so long ago, the use of a compost extractor is not such an innovation. The compost concentrate preparation process has a long history. Once upon a time, the preparation of the hood was carried out as follows:

1. Waste from human and animal life was placed in a rag container and lowered into a barrel of water, where it was kept until the water acquired a dark color.
2. The liquid obtained after infusion was watered over the plants.

This original method of preparing the extract is considered passive, and the resulting compost tea is not aerated (not saturated with air).

Aerated compost tea is considered to be more beneficial and enriched with nutrients and bacteria.

It is aeration that has become the main difference between compost tea used in modern organic farming.

Let's try to figure out why the compost concentrate is so useful. It has been scientifically proven that any plant releases a large amount of various substances into the rhizosphere (root zone): aromatic, extractive, etc. They attract microorganisms that help the plant to obtain nutrients from the soil.

1. Microbes near the roots convert the minerals into food available to the plant.
2. The more such microorganisms around the roots, the more nutrients and nutrients the plant receives.
3. Useful representatives of the soil mesofauna have microscopic sizes from 0.1 to 2-3 mm. Being underground, microorganisms breathe soil air saturated with water vapor.
4. Therefore, when the soil dries up, most of the beneficial microbes die. The plant again has to wait for "helpers", and if their number is insufficient, it is forced to starve.

In order to avoid such situations, compost tea is used (photo above). The liquid contains a full range of microorganisms necessary for the formation of a full-fledged rhizosphere.

By regularly adding concentrate to the plant, you will provide it with the constant presence of beneficial microflora and, as a result, stable development and the ability to withstand various kinds of stress.

The question may arise: why is it worth using compost tea to feed plants, because there are no less useful microorganisms in the compost itself?

1. The fact is that the introduction of dry compost into the ground is a rather laborious process. It is mainly carried out in the fall or spring during plowing or digging a vegetable garden. It is quite problematic to feed already planted plants with compost.
2. And feeding with compost tea can be carried out regularly by adding it to the water for irrigation or spraying the foliage of the plant.
3. In addition, the number of beneficial microorganisms after the aeration process increases hundreds of times. The process of aerating compost tea is shown in the photo.

Effect of the concentrate on the plant

Regular provision useful substances- this is not the only positive effect of using compost tea. Dozens of species of pathogenic microbes and bacteria are constantly on the leaves of the plant. While the plant is actively developing, the harmful microflora does not harm, but as soon as the plant weakens under the influence of stress, it is quite capable of causing an outbreak of the disease.

1. Spraying the leaves and soil around the plant with compost tea introduces tens of thousands of beneficial microorganisms. Among them there will certainly be those who, if they do not completely cleanse the plant of pathogens, will certainly weaken the colonies of pathogens and reduce the risk of developing a particular infection.
2. Having taken root on the leaves, beneficial bacteria are able not only to protect plants, but also to feed them through the stomata with the most valuable bioactive substances.
3. Thanks to intensive feeding, the stomata of the leaves remain open longer. The consequence of this is an improvement in the air regime and an increase in the assimilated carbon dioxide.
4. In addition, the constant presence of microfauna helps to clear the soil from the residues of pesticides, herbicides and other harmful chemical elements and heavy metals that have accumulated over previous years.
5. It is compost tea that can improve the soil in a short time and make it porous. This contributes to an increase in the water-retaining properties of the soil.

The advantage of compost tea is that its composition can be tailored to specific plants and to the composition of the soil that prevails on your land. The more different groups of microorganisms you add to the soil with aerated compost tea, the more high-quality humic substances will accumulate in it.

Compost tea can be used not only for watering plants, but also for disinfecting and stimulating seeds.

To do this, the seeds prepared for sowing are folded into a bag of gauze or cloth and placed in bubbling tea for a day. Seeds and seedlings poured with compost tea immediately after planting give excellent germination and take root well.

Concentrate can also restore depleted soil.

1. The area to be restored is dug up, covered with a ten-centimeter layer of plant residues and several times over the summer watered with aerated compost tea.
2. In two years on this site it will be possible to get a good harvest even from the most capricious vegetable crops.

How to make a compost extractor at home

The growing popularity of compost tea in many countries immediately responded to agricultural equipment manufacturers and released such an industrial "teapot" for compost.

Such a device is more interesting for farmers who cultivate large areas of land. And for a personal plot, you can build a fairly simple device that will be able to provide you with sufficient compost concentrate. To assemble the structure, we need:

• 3 liter glass jar,
• aquarium compressor,
• two liters of non-chlorinated water,
• a glass of compost.

To speed up the multiplication of beneficial bacteria, you can add a little sugar or jam to the water.

Mix the sweetened water and compost in a jar and turn on the compressor. In a day, the compost tea is ready. During cooking, foam rises above the liquid, therefore, regardless of the capacity of the dishes, at least a third of the space when filling with water should remain free, as shown in the photo.

A properly prepared concentrate is characterized by a pleasant smell. A badly smelling concentrate cannot be used for watering and spraying. A possible source of odor is the use of unripe or overripe compost. In addition to an unpleasant smell, improperly prepared compost tea will not have the right amount microorganisms necessary for the plant. Ripe compost should crumble in your hands and smell like earth. Some proponents of organic farming methods use humus to make tea. The principle of its preparation is the same, but the humus concentrate is not recommended for spraying the aerial part of the plant.

It should be remembered that fertilizers must be used for watering and spraying within 4 hours after preparation, otherwise all aerobic microorganisms will simply die.

You can change the composition of the tea using various additives.

1. So, for the preparation of bacterial tea, simple carbohydrates are added to the leaven.
2. If you want to increase the amount of mushrooms, you need oatmeal or soy flour, humic acids, fish broth.
3. To enhance the microfauna, a liquid is added to the starter, in which the hay has been soaked for three days.

Home-made compost tea will help you grow a large harvest of organic and delicious vegetables... How to make aerated compost tea at home, watch the video.