I would guess there’s a very small subset of gardeners who actually make and use worm tea. Don’t be offended if you do…I’m just sayin’. I’ve only used it for one season, but I’m ready to say that it might just be THE best plant grower that’s ever been concocted.
I sprayed everything once a week with worm tea last year, and I’ve never had a garden perform so uniformly well, with so little disease. One year’s not a real test, I know. But gut feeling says worm tea=good.
The process of making worm tea involves aerating the water. Last year I used a small fish air pump. This year, a little beefier. And I got this for Christmas:
The Bubblesnake! Had to try it out, like men do. You can see that it will provide some agitation…
That was my excitement for the day. It doesn’t take much.
vegetablurb 
How do you make your worm tea?
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Peter, I fill a 5 gallon bucket with non-chlorinated water, add 1/4 cup of unsulfured molasses and sometimes a Tbsp of liquid kelp and make sure that’s well mixed. Then I put a handful or two of worm castings into a paint strainer bag and suspend the bag in the water mixture. Turn on the pump and let it bubble at room temp for 24 hours.
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You have me interested with the worms, I must say. It seems like a space-efficient way to create your own fertilizer.
With my obsession… uh, keen interest in native fauna, I wonder if you can compost with any worms, or is there a specific variety? In other words, can I have a worm bin with worms I dig up from my existing soil? Because I’m hesitant to use outside worms if there’s a chance they could escape and become invasive.
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Deby, Red wigglers are the kind you’d want to use. They’re different from the soil dwelling worms in your garden. Red wigglers are top dwellers, very efficient at making compost, and garden worms are earth diggers, which means they’d die off if contained in a bin.
Red wigglers are used for composting (and fishing) but aren’t adapted to cold climates very well.
Here’s a quick description of some of the common worms and their abilities… http://www.redworms.com/which-worm-is-right-for-me.html
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Thanks much, Dan!
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You’re funny! Love your posts. Im slack, i have everything else but a worm farm. Comfrey tea, fish and seaweed brew (so damned smelly). I didnt know you needed to aerate the tea? Guess it makes sense, as all these ideally should be aerobic .. Nothing like a good stir! 🙂
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Thanks Julie, and you’re hardly slack! I’d like to try comfrey. I’ve heard good things about it. Do you make garden tea with it, or use it some other way?
And I’m working on an unnecessarily wordy post for tomorrow on worms.
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Hey Dan .. I make tea out of the comfrey, dilute it and slosh it around my garden. High in nitrogen and potassium .. My garden loves it 🙂
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