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From the pages of Kitchen
Gardener Magazine
Brewing Compost
Tea
Tap your compost pile to make a potion that is both
fertilizer and disease prevention
by Elaine R. Ingham
Gardeners all
know compost is terrific stuff. But there's something even better than
plain old compost, and that's compost tea. As the name implies, compost
tea is made by steeping compost in water. It's used as either a foliar
spray or a soil drench, depending on where your plant has
problems.
Why go to the extra trouble
of brewing, straining, and spraying a tea rather than just working compost
into the soil? There are several reasons. First, compost tea makes the
benefits of compost go farther. What's more, when sprayed on the leaves,
compost tea helps suppress foliar diseases, increases the amount of
nutrients available to the plant, and speeds the breakdown of toxins.
Using compost tea has even been shown to increase the nutritional quality
and improve the flavor of vegetables. If you've been applying compost to
your soil only in the traditional way, you're missing out on a whole host
of benefits
The science behind compost
tea
The soil is full of microorganisms
that aid plant growth and plant health--bacteria and fungi, which are
decomposers, and protozoa and beneficial nematodes, which are predators.
But there are bad guys, too--disease-causing bacteria and fungi, protozoa,
and root-feeding nematodes. Our goal as gardeners is to enhance the
beneficial microorganisms in this soil foodweb, because they help our
plants.
The bad bacterial
decomposers and the plant-toxic products they make are enhanced by
anaerobic, or reduced-oxygen, conditions. By making sure the tea and the
compost itself are well oxygenated and highly aerobic, you eliminate 75
percent of the potential plant-disease-causing bacteria and plant-toxic
products. To take care of the other 25 percent of potential diseases and
pests, you want to get good guys into the soil and on at least 60 to 70
percent of your plants' leaves. Good bacteria work against the detrimental
ones in four ways: They consume the bad guys, they may produce antibiotics
that inhibit them, they compete for nutrients, and they compete for
space.
Plants themselves don't use all
of the energy they make through photosynthesis. For example, 60 percent of
a vegetable plant's energy goes to its root system, and half of that
energy is exuded into the soil. Of those exudates, 90 percent are sugars;
the rest are carbohydrates and proteins. When you think about these
ingredients as food, they're the makings for cake. This is high-energy
stuff. Why is nearly one-third of a vegetable plant's output going into
the soil as energy-rich food? To feed the good bacteria and
fungi.
When we human beings kill off
bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, and other organisms, whether by
polluting the air or by spraying pesticides or even by using chemical
fertilizers, we're reducing the population of critters that plants feed.
That's why one of the simplest and best things you can do for your garden
is to spray your plants with compost tea, to bring back organisms killed
by chemicals.
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Healthy
Soil
25 articles from Fine
Gardening cover the basic components of soil and how to
amend it with compost, fertilizers, and
mulch
|
Kitchen
Gardener Back Issues
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