Hi Hive DIY and gardening enthusiasts! Here's another simple DIY project from Ligaya Garden. When you've finished reading the post (and hopefully upvoted it), please feel free to comment with any design changes or other uses that you might try for this project.
This one is worm castings tea...
Worm castings contain more nutrients and bacteria than many other fertilizers. They include minerals such as phosphorus, magnesium, potassium and calcium, manganese, copper, zinc, iron, cobalt, boron, carbon and nitrogen. Practically everythig a growing plant needs!
When we say ‘worm tea’ we are not talking about the leachate that derains from the bottom of your worm farm. This is more correctly called ‘leachate’ and is a mix of the secretions of the worms within the farm, leched material from the decomposition of vegetable material and excess moisture in the worm farm itself.
This liquid can contain pathogenic bacteria from the foodstuffs in the worm farm and, while it can be used on your garden, sohould not be applied directly to plants like your leafy greens that are going to be for dinner tonight.
What we mean by ‘worm tea’ or ‘worm castings tea’ is a brew of the worm castings themselves in water. It’s dead easy to make, as you’ll see…
Stir them around from time to time and when the water’s lovely and brown, remove the bag (putting the castings on the garden or into the compost) use the water on your plant as a root drench as is or dilute it a further 50 or even 100:1 with water and use it as a foliar spray.
That’s the basic idea. I like to step it up a notch and brew bigger batches with a bubbler to aerate and constantly move the water through the castings as the bag hangs in the container. The tea is then called an ‘aerated tea’. You can find much more info about aerated compost teas on our page here.
I like to let brew mix for a minimum of 4 hours and as much as 24 hours to get all the microbes well aerated and get as much oxygen into the water as possible. Just remember to check that your pump isn’t getting too hot and give it a break if it is.
You can add 1/2 tsp of molasses for every 10 litres of water.You can add 1/2 tsp of molasses for every 10 litres of water.
If you want to take it even further (the sky’s the limit reallly), add molasses to the water at a rate of 1/2 teaspoonful of molasses to 10 litres of water to feed up the microbes and give your brew a huge kick!
You’ll know when your aerated brew is ready because there will be a sweet, earthy smell and/or there will be bubbles on the surface of the brew thar stay longer than those from your air source.
If you have too many bubbles hanging around on the surface, it’s not a bad thing but points to the fact that you’ve used too much molasses for the size of your brew- it’s been too nutritious for the microbes.
If you’re thinking of starting a worm farm or want a few tips on making yours run nicely to keep your worms happy, check out our vermicomposting page.
