If you’ve been a cannabis grower for long, there’s one fact you’re almost certainly aware of: growing healthy marijuana plants isn’t as simple as taking an evening stroll into your yard and watering the plants. It takes effort and careful planning. Vamping up your soil with extra plant nutrients to enhance the health of your cannabis plant is one of them. This is when compost tea comes in handy. Looking to try something new? Check out this.
What Is Compost Tea And Why You Should Care?
Compost tea is a blended brew made of compost, aerated water, and other nutrients. It’s created by removing the bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and nematodes from high-quality compost (which is mostly waste products like food scraps, grass trimmings, eggshells).Compost is rich in all of the necessary microorganisms (bacterial and fungal) as well as important soil minerals like manganese and nitrogen, which promotes soil dependability. The compost transfers these elements to the dirt and plants when applied. These nutrients, beneficial bacteria, and fungal organisms, on the other hand, perform a lot more than just enhance cannabis growth. Cannabis plants benefit from beneficial microorganisms in compost tea because they receive improved natural protection against disease.
Ingredients in Compost Tea for Cannabis Plants
You’ll need a layer of compost as the base, along with banana peels, egg shells, and fruit or vegetable scraps. Then you’ll need things like worm castings, fish hydrolysate, kelp and molasses. For local pathogens, you may get your compost locally. Worm castings are formed as the result of worms eating and digesting organic matter. These castings include a high concentration of nutrients that are broken down and refined in such a manner that the plants can absorb them easily. This is how bacteria get introduced to the plants.
Fish hydrolysate aids in the breakdown of fish and results in a high-nitrogen product. It aids in the plant’s nutrition and encourages fungal growth. Kelp is a source of food for the fungus, while molasses is a source of food for the beneficial bacteria.
Great Base For Growing Beneficial Microorganisms
Bad soil is the worst thing that can happen to your cannabis plant. It may try to sprout some harvests here and there, but it won’t thrive. Soils are often uncooperative owing to a lack of microorganisms that transform nutrients in food into usable substances for your weed plant. A small number of these organisms (bacteria or fungal colonies) would render the soil low-quality. Compost tea is an excellent way to get fresh compost microorganisms “into the game” of growing cannabis. The presence of these microorganisms will improve the soil’s capacity to stimulate a high yield by adding more composting microbes.
What Do You Need to Make Compost Tea?
This is where things may get murky, as we’ve already mentioned that there are numerous types of compost tea – it might be difficult to know where to start! That being said, understanding and comprehending the fundamental components will assist you in gaining a hold on things, and from there you may play around with different additions if you like.
Compost
The first component of any compost tea is, of course, fresh soil! We’d always encourage anybody serious about gardening to have a compost bin since it might take months to build but is extremely simple and ecologically responsible! For compost tea, high-quality, healthy compost is required; therefore, if you’re creating your own make sure there’s a good mix of vegetation and brown matter to give it with the essential nutrients.
If you don’t have your source of compost, or yours isn’t ready for use yet – you can find good quality options in many gardening stores!
Food & Nutrients
At this point, the extras you added come into play! We’ve seen countless individuals make compost tea with only natural, healthful compost and a pail of water! Although it’s true that adding extra food and nutrients may improve the end result, it’s also feasible to keep things basic if your compost is excellent enough.
Assuming you do want to add in some additional extras, here are some of the most common and popular choices:
- Molasses
- Liquid seaweed
- Liquid Kelp
- Work castings
- Fish hydrolysate
The ingredients listed above, as well as a variety of others that can be added, provide food and extra nutrients for your compost tea, which may help your cannabis plant.
Liquid kelp and molasses, for example, nourish the microorganisms in compost, allowing them to proliferate greatly. Kept moist during the winter months, liquid kelp may help to improve soil health as well as being a good source of food for organisms that cycle nutrients and feed plants.
Many organic food sources can be fed to the creatures in cannabis plants, and they might make a significant contribution to the success of your favorite herb.
Oxygen
The final essential component of compost tea is air, which is required for aeration and allowing microorganisms to grow. This might be difficult since fast-growing microorganisms may require more oxygen than is available, resulting in potentially harmful materials. A good air pump that offers a 6 ppm threshold should suffice for most brewing procedures.
We could go on about the many compost ingredients for hours, but the basic necessities are a healthy compost and a good oxygen system, which shouldn’t be difficult to find!
A large bucket, a decent air pump, an aerator, and a decent pair of panty hose or a mesh bag are the most important tools for this job. Anything else you want to use can be an afterthought — if you have these things, you’ve got all you’ll need.