Tea for the Garden

The primary player in casting tea

I have been working in the garden a lot lately.
Just trying to get everything squared away before it get so, so hot!!

I have this aversion to buying things for the garden, I like to make do with what I have on hand.
I use a lot of food grade Diatomacous Earth for pest control, seeing how I have it around for the animals any way.
And for feeding my garden plants and soil I use  cow manure and earthworm castings.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          mmmm.....   garden soo happy...! 

castings, molasses and an aquarium aerator

Worm castings are basically worm poop. My worms exclusively eat cow manure. The castings are great to add to the soil when planting and also to use to make a tea to feed the plants when watering
.

put the castings in the sock to make the "tea bag"

What one needs to brew casting tea are the following things: worm castings, molasses, an aerator ( good but not a deal breaker), a sock and a bucket of water left to stand overnight.

 So here we go.... take some castings and fill a small sock to make the tea bag for your tea. Knot it closed and put it in the bucket of water that you left overnight ( this supposedly allows the chlorine to leave the water) you want the water to be as chlorine free as possible. You see, chlorine acts as a bacterial killer in our water, but what we are trying to do is create a tea of beneficial bacteria for the soil and plant.

add molasses to feed the micro organisms

Ok, so you put the tea bag in to steep. Then put the aerator into the bucket of water to add oxygen to the water ( we do not want anaerobic bacteria to grow in the tea)

Next thing add some molasses, you are supposed to measure this but I actually hate to measure things, so I just pour some in, probably a few tablespoons. Those micro organisms need to eat to stay healthy so feed them with the molasses.

watering with the tea

When the tea looks like, well, tea... then serve it to your plants. Use it as a foliage  feeder as well as just  for watering.

Oh yeah, and by the way I am going to be selling worms, castings and manure any day now, so if you are interested.......