We visited Mindy Jaffe at Ka'ohao (formerly Lanikai) Elementary School this past weekend and saw what an amazing job they're doing making excellent vermicompost and compost. She even sang us a song about the F.B.I. -- fungi, bacteria, invertebrates -- the workhorses of compost.
I realized a few things:
- I definitely need to increase my worm population in order to speed up my compost process.
- I definitely need to start learning to brew my own compost tea and using it to inoculate my seedlings and plants with good F.B.I.
- Schools generate a LOT of waste!
- I could probably find ways to turn people's waste into good compost.
- I really like making good compost.
Feeling inspired to finally try this, I finally made my first, less-than-perfect batch of compost tea:
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First, I harvested about half an ounce of vermicast and half an ounce of my bokashi
compost, and stuck them in a tea strainer I wasn't using. |
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| I bubbled about 5 gallons of water and let it sit outside for a while to dissipate some chlorine (municipal water), although I should've done this for at least a day. |
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| I strung the tea strainer from fishing line and attached it to a big paint stick. |
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| Lastly, I lowered the tea strainer into the water and turned the fish bait aerator on. |
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| This is what it looked like after 24 hours. Normally, compost tea is pretty colorless. I suspect my vermicast had lots of coffee grounds in it that escaped from the tea strainer and colored the water more than normal. |
Ideal brew time is 48 hours, but when I got home tonight, I found the aerator not on. I have no idea how long ago the battery died, so I decided to just use the tea ASAP. It had been brewing for at least 25 hours -- hopefully as many as many as 30-34 hours -- but I'm hoping to see some benefit from it. I'd love to be able to reduce pests and disease using compost tea, but I have no idea how good my compost is. Maybe I should get it tested next time. Until then, I'll just hope to notice positive changes in my plants!
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