How to Brew Compost Tea

by Travis C | Mar 4, 2020 | 420

Growing organically should be the eventual goal of every grower, and brewing your own compost tea is the first step.

For most, growing “organic” is a lot easier said than done. At first it might seem like there’s a plethora of organic nutrients out there that do the same thing as synthetics. But a brand name and even a label isn’t always honest.

There are dozens of nutrients, fertilizers and other plant products that might have “organics” in the name, but this doesn’t guarantee the product itself is organic. But you can avoid a lot of the false marketing by starting your organic grow with a compost tea.

What is Compost?

If you grew up with a pile of food and vegetable scraps in the backyard, you’re already familiar with compost. Compost is simply just organic material that is combined together to produce a breeding ground for beneficial microbes and bacteria.

A healthy compost tea pulls the soluble nutrients and microorganisms from compost; this includes bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes. Nematodes do not have a life cycle that is rapid enough to increase their population in the time it takes to brew a tea.

However, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa can all increase their populations with the right foods and conditions. Once you’ve got the right mix you want for your compost, you can begin mixing your tea.

How to brew compost tea

Compost tea is literally just that, tea. Like you would brew up a cup of tea with a teabag, you’ll want to put your compost into a fine micron bag to ensure it doesn’t spill into your water while it is brewing. But before you add anything to anything, you need to make sure your water is aerated with an air pump. This is important especially if your water source is chlorinated, as aerating your water will remove it.

Once you’re ready to start brewing, you’ll want to use roughly 5 pounds of compost for every 25 gallons of water. In addition to the compost you add in, there are other beneficials you can add to enhance your compost tea.

You can add in 1–2 tablespoons of humic acid and dilute it in 2 cups of water before adding it into the tea. You can also use 1–2 tablespoons of fish hydrolysate as an alternative. Now go ahead and mix ½ cup of kelp into 5 cups of water. Once adequately mixed, add this into the compost tea for a highly nutritious punch.

Once you have all your ingredients together and your compost is in the water, all you need to do is wait. Ideally compost tea will take 24-36 hours to complete brewing. Make sure you keep an eye on the temperature of your water, as temperature is essential for the development of bacteria and fungi.

The optimum temperature for healthy compost tea is between 65-85 degree Fahrenheit.

Applying your tea

There are two popular ways to apply your compost tea to your plants. The simplest option is to use the compost tea as a soil drench, applying it during your regular feedings for optimal nutrient uptake.

The other option requires a little more gear, and that’s applying your compost tea as a foliar spray. With a sprayer you can walk the grow and spray down your plants making sure they are completely covered. Doing so can put beneficial fungi and even predatory nematodes on your leaves to protect against predators.

And that’s about it! When it comes to making compost tea, the most essential ingredient is obviously the compost. Make sure your compost is fully developed and not still breaking down the organic material within. It should look and smell like fresh soil from the earth when it is ready to use in a tea. And there is always more you can do to produce healthier, more beneficial compost.

You can also greatly simplify the brewing process by using a compost tea brewer. While these can be expensive, The Real Dirt is working with Cutting Edge Solutions to provide an incredible deal on their 15-gallon and 35-gallon brewers. When you buy a ticket to our Organic Cultivation Seminar, you can save over $500.00 on these compost tea brewers, all included with a full-day seminar on organic cultivation.

Everything from the basics of organic cultivation, to building your own organic soil and brewing compost tea efficiently will be covered at this seminar, all for an incredible price.

Toklahoma: Growing cannabis in Oklahoma

by Travis C | Jul 9, 2019 | cannabis business, cannabis culture, cannabis industry, Cannabis science, Season 3, The Real Dirt Podcast Episodes

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It’s time to get growing in Oklahoma.

Right now is a great time to be growing cannabis in Oklahoma. For starters, it’s legal as long as you have a medical card. Second, Oklahoma has some of the most accessible cannabis laws in the country, making it super easy for anybody to start growing cannabis for themselves.

But for some, growing cannabis and using cannabis is still a taboo they are trying to overcome. This is in part because of Oklahoma’s inexperience with cannabis culture.

Oklahoma Cannabis Culture

“What is that?”, is probably what a lot of people in Oklahoma would say right now if you asked them about Oklahoma’s cannabis culture. That’s because up until 2018, it was pretty much non-existent.

Cannabis is very new to the state of Oklahoma, a traditionally red, conservative state that sits in southern-middle America. Compared to Colorado, California, Nevada and other larger states that have legalized cannabis, Oklahoma is pretty small.

Oklahoma City has a population of less than 650,000, with the next biggest city, Tulsa, having just over 400,000. Even with big city hubs, Oklahoma is still pretty rural. In other words, there was little interest in cannabis culture in Oklahoma until recently.

But with the state’s new laws, many are seeing the opportunity as more than just a new medicinal avenue, but a business avenue. It’s no secret that cannabis brings a lot of business, jobs, and money to wherever it becomes legal, medical or otherwise. So it should come as no surprise that people in an agricultural state like Oklahoma would jump on the opportunity to start growing cannabis.

Growing Cannabis in Oklahoma

It may seem simple enough as a traditional farmer or vegetable grower when growing cannabis for the first time; just plant the seeds or clones, give them water and sunlight and you’ll get results. But cannabis is not quite that simple like other vegetables or field crops.

Especially if you’re growing cannabis to distribute to dispensaries and processors, you want to grow the finest cannabis possible, not the easiest or simplest. The first thing you need to decide has already been mentioned, and that’s deciding whether or not you’re growing cannabis from seeds or clones.

The smartest and easiest things to do for new growers just growing for personal use is to buy clones. These are precut pieces of cannabis mother plants that have tested, proven quality genetics that will produce a plant just like the mother. Clones save you the trouble of having to grow out seeds for a couple months just to weed out the males (pun intended) and realize they were half of your stock.

For commercial growers however, building a cannabis business means standing out from the competition. You can either grow consistent, quality cannabis from clones of other growers’ gardens, or you can develop your own strains. Obviously breeding cannabis is no amateur task, and takes patience, trial and error.

But growing from seed gives growers the ability to pollinate and cross-breed their favorite strains to create new ones, an ability not afforded by clones since they are all female. A general tip to remember is that clones are more sensitive at first, and more prone to disease compared to seeds which are heartier, but overall clones are much easier to manage for a new grower.

Everything to know before you grow

In this episode of The Real Dirt Podcast, Chip talks to Darryl Souza and Chris Bane of Cultivate Denver and Cultivate OKC. Darryl and Chris combined have been in hundreds of grows and they have seen how cannabis is grown, right and wrong, indoor and outdoor, so they know a thing or two about growing cannabis of high quality, consistently.

Tune in as the three talk best practices for growing cannabis in Oklahoma, which lights, soils and nutrients are best and more on another knowledge-packed episode of The Real Dirt Podcast.