Today I’m making compost tea. I make 2 – 5 gallon buckets every week. Compost tea is made from vermicompost that my composting worms create in my worm bin in the garage. We put all of our vegetable scraps – lettuce, celery, carrot peels, banana peels, etc. into the worm bin. After harvesting lettuce, the roots and imperfect leaves go into the worm bin too. (As the Korean natural farmer says, “Lettuce has what lettuce needs”). Also add coffee grounds, tea leaves, crushed eggshells. (We microwave the eggshells before we put them in the worm bin to make sure there’s no bad bacteria on them.)
About once a month I harvest the vermicompost from the worm bin. I end up with this big bucket of vermicompost and I take about a pint of vermicompost and mix in a small scoop of kelp meal. Add a small scoop of iron chelate to the five gallon bucket. Fill the bucket with about three gallons of well water, hang the compost tea bag in the bucket, then top it up with water from the swirl filter tank. This is aerated in the bucket for about 3 days. I do this on Monday and Thursday.
I pour the compost tea on the plants in the media beds, in the deep water culture bed, and, depending on how the plants look, in the wicking bed. This is the only fertilizer that I add to this aquaponic system. And it helps keep everything growing green and healthy.
I bought the worms from Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm
