Make Your Own Worm Tea

What is worm tea?

Worm tea is believed to be the miracle natural fertilizer made from all natural ingredients. It is a process of soaking worm castings in water for a certain period of time in order to grow additional bacteria that is to be added to the garden. The main ingredient are the worm castings (the worm manure) which is soaked in water, hence the name worm tea. Add a few other ingredients and you have the super power fertilizer some people rave about. Worm tea is also known as worm compost tea or vermicompost tea.

The goal with making worm tea is increasing the amount of microbes, more specifically the bacteria. It can’t be any type of bacteria, but the good stuff. As you introduce more good bacteria into the garden soil, your plants will feed off that and become healthier and thrive more.

There is a lot to say about worm tea and I won’t be able to cover it all here but this should be a good start for you if you aren’t familiar with it.

What are the benefits of worm tea?

You name something good for a plant, worm tea most likely provides it, just as plain worm castings do.

Compost tea improves the life of the soil by adding additional microbes into the soil. This in turn helps provide nutrients to the plants.

It is believed that worm tea also acts as a deterrent to pests and diseases.

The list goes on.

However, there is always someone who may disagree and says there is no additional benefit to creating and adding worm tea to the plants than there is when adding worm castings alone. I feel that using worm tea allows the benefits of the worm castings to go further rather than just within the area worm castings alone would be applied.

Where can you use worm tea?

Anywhere from vegetable gardens, outdoor ornamental gardens, lawns, trees, house plants, compost bins, seed starting…you name it, you can apply it…as long as it is plant or garden related.

How often can you use worm tea?

This is a very common conclusion…You can use worm tea as often as you would like. There is no chance of burning the plants from over fertilization.

Make sure to use the worm tea as soon as possible because it doesn’t store well. The microbes will begin to die off the longer you wait to use it, so don’t let it sit around too long. You don’t want that since the main reason for the worm tea is for the beneficial microbes. I typically do not start making the tea until I know I can use it once the tea is ready. See below for approximate timeline from starting the tea to applying the tea.

How to make worm tea?

Alright, now to the brew!

There are many opinions and ways to make worm tea. This is the way you make it. This is what works. This is what you need to do.

No! I do not believe there is truly a perfect way to make worm tea as long as you do it safely.

I am going to share with you what seems to work for me. I have experimented with a few different variations until I became satisfied with the results.

This recipe is for 5 gallons of tea and is considered Actively Aerated Compost Tea (AACT) because it is aerated with an aquarium pump.

Things you will need:

• 5 Gallon bucket
• Worm castings – just enough to fill up the cheesecloth
• Dechlorinated water
• Ascorbic Acid – Vitamin C (Paid Link)
• Air pump, tubing, and air stones (Paid Link)
• 1 teaspoon Unsulphured Molasses (Paid Link) – Make sure it is “unsulphured”
• 1 teaspoon Fish emulsion (Paid Link)
• High spectrum PH test kit (Paid Link)
• 12 inch square piece of cheesecloth (Paid Link)
• Cotton string
• S hook
• Microscope (optional, but fun!) (Paid Link)
• If you get the microscope, then you may want to get the accessory kit (Paid Link)

As for the food, such as the molasses and fish emulsion, there are many other food types people use and swear by. What I have listed here is what I have tried, so I can’t really say if the others truly work. However, I am a strong believer that as long as you add stuff that plants like anyways, you most likely can’t go wrong.

The process

Here is my process of making the worm tea. Each method someone has used may be slightly different, but not by much.

Dechlorinate the water

The first thing you will want to do is make sure your water doesn’t have chlorine in it. This seems to be one of those debatable topics. Some people say do it, others say you don’t need to because the water company doesn’t use chlorine. Others are on a well so they don’t need to worry about it. And others say they have never had a problem with the tea when it has chlorine in it. There are plenty of reasons. The way I look at it is if the water company has chlorine or chloramines in the water to kill bacteria to prevent getting us sick, what do you think may happen if you don’t dechlorinate the water? Bacteria dies.

I say just do it unless you are on a well. It is a simple process and doesn’t take much time. All you need to do is fill up your bucket with water, add the air stones and turn on the pump. Let it aerate for approximately 24 hours. That’s it! Simple. Again, someone may come by and say that the water will not dechlorinate within 24 hours. I have tested the chlorine levels myself and it does drop over that period of time.

One of these days I may test some worm tea with my tap water without dechlorinating it to see if it makes a difference. But until then, I will continue to dechlorinate it.

Don’t turn off the air pump. Let it keep pumping air until the tea is ready to be used.

Test the PH

I don’t know if anyone else does this step, but it is something I like doing just because it ended up being a part of my process of testing things out. Now, it does not seem complete without including this step. Some people add ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) to the water which I guess is supposed to neutralize the chlorine or chloramines. I use to do that myself based on a couple sources that said to do it, but I don’t see it being necessary if I am aerating the water to get rid of the chlorine.

However, I usually add the ascorbic acid to bring down the PH in my water. PH ranges from 0 to 14. 7 is neutral, below 7 is acidic, and above 7 is alkaline (basic). My tap water tends to have a PH around 8.0 and 8.5. Most vegetable plants like the PH of the soil to be around the 5.5 and 6.5 range. I like bringing the PH down to around 6.0. All it takes is about 1/4 of a teaspoon of the ascorbic acid to bring it down from and 8.0 to 6.0 in this 4-5 gallon brew.

Just so I know where things are at in the process, I test the PH:

• When adding the water
• After adding the food
• Before using the tea

Is it needed? Eh, probably not, so it is up to you if you want to check it out yourself.

Add the food

Add a little molasses and a little fish emulsion. It doesn’t take much for either to feed the bacteria.

Add the worm castings

Grab your cheesecloth and some fresh worm castings. The fresher, the better!

When I gather worm castings from my worm bins, I dig down a bit to get to the more moist stuff. This area tends to have more microbes than the drier stuff on the top layer.

Lightly wrap up the castings in the cheesecloth and use cotton string or something to tie it to the top.

Make a loop on the loose end so it can suspend from the S hook. Suspend the sack of worm castings over the edge of the bucket.

If you don’t want to deal with the cheesecloth, you can add the worm castings straight to the brew.

Let it brew

Let it brew for about 24 hours. You don’t want to go for too long or you risk the bacteria dying due to lack of food and oxygen. When that happens, bad bacteria may begin to take over.

A common rule of thumb is that as long as the tea doesn’t smell bad, you should have good bacteria. If using fish emulsion, you will need to get past the fish smell.

Make sure the air is creating nice rolling bubbles so that you know you are getting enough oxygen.

Use it

When the 24 hours is up, it is time to use it. Some people dilute the worm tea with water to make it extend further. Others use it straight. I have done both.

So…diluting the water…I will be honest here…the water I have used to dilute my brew has been straight from the garden hose. The same water that has the chlorine or chloramine. I have not tested the brew after diluting the water so I have no idea if it has killed the microbes or not. When I realized that it did not make sense, I stopped diluting the water. Sure, if I was really concerned about it, I could dechlorinate the water just as I do when starting the tea. However, that would require a bunch more water, buckets, and air pumps that I don’t have. I could also get a 55 gallon drum and a larger air pump and do it that way. But I don’t. Now I just use the tea straight.

What are some of the ways of using it?

1. You can pour it directly into the garden beds.
2. You can use it as a foliar spray. Just put it into a spray bottle and spray it all over the plant leaves. Just make sure you screen the tea first to get all the chunks out, otherwise it will clog the sprayer.
3. Use it on the lawns.
4. Use it on house plants.

Clean everything!

When you are done, make sure you clean everything well by wiping it down with some hydrogen peroxide. Get all crevices.

One thing that compost tea or worm tea creates is something called bio slime. I have heard from multiple sources that bio slime could kill your plants if it becomes excessive. True? I don’t know, but it is something to look into more. I would rather make sure all my equipment is clean before creating my next batch of tea. Hey! I should find some and put it under the microscope!

What kind of microbes might you find in worm tea?

There are many different kinds of microbes you may find in worm tea, but just to name a few that I am becoming a little more familiar with, they are:

• Bacteria
• Fungi
• Protozoa
• Ciliates
• Flagellates
• Nematodes

Each time I look under the microscope, I usually have a pretty good chance on seeing something different. It may be the same type of microbe I have seen before, but maybe the behavior is slightly different or in different quantities. I experience watching a couple of them die. Morbid, I know. But it was cool to witness when I saw all the bacteria burst out the side of one little creature that we never get to see with our own eyes! As the Little Mermaid says…”It’s a whole new world.” Or was it Aladdin? Anyways, it is a world many of us never get to see.