Four Benefits of Compost Tea - By: Mike the Gardener Enterprises, LLC

If purchased from a gardening store or garden center, good quality compost tea can cost as much as twenty dollars per gallon, and who can argue the price. The benefits are so great to this wonderful gardening elixir that it truly is worth its weight in gold.

However, before you drop hundreds of dollars, you should know that you can make your own fairly easily. A simple recipe is to fill a small burlap sack with finished compost, also called humus, and submerge the filled sack into a 5 gallon bucket of water. Let it steep for 24 to 48 hours and you will have compost tea.

This is just one recipe of many that you can use to create your own compost tea. The important thing here is the compost itself. It must be of good quality and must be the finished product. Ok, it doesn't have to be the finished product, but it should be as close to done as possible.

But what exactly are the benefits of compost tea? I have outlined four benefits below that should make you get excited about getting out there to create some compost tea of your own.

Usage

You could just take your compost and mix it in with your soil, but before you do, make some compost tea with it. Brewing compost tea with your compost does not degrade the compost itself thereby extending the use of it by adding in another dimension. Brewing compost tea creates a liquid version of your compost.

Disease Suppression

Although there is not much scientific data backing this theory up, many expert gardeners and horticulturists agree that when you spray compost tea on the leaves of your plants, it has shown to suppress some diseases that fruits and vegetables are susceptible to.

Increase of Nutrients

As with humans, the assimilation of liquid into the blood stream is much faster than solids. The same holds true for plants. Compost tea, as noted before, is a liquid fertilizer and this allows for a greater amount of nutrients to be absorbed by your plants much quicker than other means or methods.

Better Flavors

In taste tests between vegetables and fruits that have been treated with compost tea and those that have not, the flavor of the fruits and vegetables were scored higher.

If you have not been using compost tea, you are missing out on a great deal of benefits that will help improve your home vegetable garden. Start with the simple recipe that I have already given you and then start implementing your own brew as you become more comfortable with the process. The important thing is that you start with quality compost.

About the Author

About the Author
Michael C. Podlesny is the administrator for the largest Vegetable Gardening page on Facebook.

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Mike-the-Gardener-Enterprises--LLC/21946

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