Salt Spring Soil Compost Tea

Introducing Salt Spring Soil!

A new source for local, regenerative soil building amendments to help you and your plants grow abundantly.

Compost tea is a liquid soil amendment that is packed full of nutrients and beneficial micro-organisms that will make your plants healthier and your soil food web stronger.

We make our compost tea by mixing vermi-compost, water, sustainably harvested kelp fertilizer, and humic acid (the building block of soil humus) together with lots of oxygen in our 60 gallon brewer. The mix bubbles away for 24-48 hours as oxygen is pumped into the bottom of the tank. The combination of water, oxygen, and food in the form of kelp fertilizer, causes the micro-organisms in the vermi-compost to multiply exponentially during the brewing process. What comes out the tap at the end is a plant available liquid fertilizer filled with an incredible diversity and number of beneficial micro-organisms that will help form a healthy soil food web in your garden.

Application

Compost tea is full of beneficial living organisms and it needs to be applied asap so the organisms have a chance to establish in their new home before they run out of food in the tea. It is essential that you use all of the compost tea the same day you pick it up.

Apply compost tea directly into soil that contains living plant roots because the micro-organisms need plants to become established in the soil.

After the tea has been applied to the soil water with non-chlorinated water to help the organisms sink lower into the soil and stay moist.

Compost tea can also be applied as a foliar spray (on the leaves) to plants that don’t mind having wet leaves. The micro-organisms in the tea will coat the leaves and form a protective layer on the plant, repelling disease causing organisms.

Seeds about to be planted and plants getting transplanted can both be soaked in compost tea to inoculate the seed or roots with beneficial organisms.

For More Information

Compost Tea: A How-To Guide

Tea will be provided in reusable white plastic jugs. Please return jugs to localsalt the following week.