Worm tea! Sounds gross, doesn’t it? But your plants will love it! It’s super easy to use and is packed with benefits. Plus, a little goes a long way!
What is worm tea and how do you make it?
Worm tea is what is created when steeping worm castings (worm manure) in water.
Making your own worm tea is very easy!
How to make worm tea:
Mix a ratio of worm castings with a few gallons of water, let it steep for 48 hours and then start using it! It’s also the liquid byproduct or vermicomposting. Or, if you don’t have any worm castings, you can buy it!
You can get fancy by aerating with with an aquarium pump if you’d like to keep it fresh longer.
The benefits of worm tea
To get technical, worm tea will boost microbial activity in soil because it adds bacteria, fungi, and lots of other good stuff to your soil. While using worm castings as a fertilizer is also great for your plants, it’s slower to absorb. This is fantastic, but when you want to give your plants a quick boost, then worm tea is what you need.
Check out these other benefits of worm tea:
- During summer’s dry, hot days, worm tea helps your soil retain water. If you use your worm tea as a spray, it helps your plants produce more leaves and stronger, larger stems.
- It protects plants from diseases.
- It’s a natural insect repellant.
- If you have a compost heap, you can also use worm tea to help speed up the breakdown process!
- You’ll be using a 100 percent organic liquid fertilizer which is not only great for your plants, but it’s also great for the environment!
How to use worm tea
First, dilute your worm tea in a 1:3 ratio of water. Next, you can scoop out your worm tea and dump it straight on your plants! Because it’s an insect repellant, this is a great way for maximum coverage.
Or you can put your diluted worm tea in a spray bottle and mist your plants. Your purchased worm tea will be strained for you, so no need to worry before putting it in the spray bottle. If you’ve made your own worm tea without a steeping bag, make sure to strain it before adding it to the bottle to prevent clogs in the nozzle.
Use worm tea on your plants once a week.
How to store worm tea
Worm tea is comprised of many alive elements, so you don’t want to store it in anything that is airtight because you’ll kill the microorganisms.
You can store your worm tea in a bucket without a lid or a lid that is loosely covered. Your worm tea is only going to last a day or two before it loses it’s benefits and potency. If it begins to smell, then it’s time to dump it out.
Where can you buy worm tea?
Worm tea is so easy to make! There is no need to buy it. However, we understand that not everyone has access to worm castings or worm tea.
If you don’t have access to worm castings to make your own worm tea, you can buy some.
We sell our worm tea at the farmers market for $5 per 8 once jar.
You can also buy some on Amazon! Crazy, right? Check out some of the options here:
Learn more about compost
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