Easy Way to Make Worm Compost Tea

Hello and welcome to HealthyHousePlants.com, where we teach you all about gardening in the great indoors. Today’s video is sponsored by our Amazon affiliate link, which you’ll see in the comment section below. Today, I’m going to talk to you about worm compost tea—a fast and easy way to make worm compost tea.

Now, worm compost can be obtained in granular form. I have another video about worm compost, and here it is. You can see it looks like a nice base amendment, and while it is technically worm poop, it doesn’t have an odor. Worms are one of the few animals that can boast their waste doesn’t stink!

In the other video, I talk a lot about the benefits of using worm compost and how to use it in granular form. Just briefly, worm compost is a wonderful way to add micronutrients to your soil. Not all fertilizers have a lot of micronutrients, so this is a great way to get those essential nutrients into your houseplant soil that may not be otherwise available. Outdoors, these micronutrients are more readily available because there are worms burrowing through the soil and depositing their castings. However, in your houseplant soil, these nutrients may be absent or present in very limited amounts, and they can be flushed out after a few waterings.

It’s a good idea to periodically re-inoculate your houseplant soil with micronutrients, and worm castings are one of the best ways to do that. Worm castings also have other benefits, including helping plants ward off pests and diseases. This makes worm compost a nice, gentle way to fertilize your plants, with a very low chance of burning roots since it’s a natural fertilizer, often referred to as Mother Nature’s fertilizer.

Now, let me show you some tea I’ve created. There are ways to use a pump to make worm compost tea, but the fast and easy method is to simply add worm compost to water and let it steep. For this, I have about a gallon of water and a cup of worm compost in it. The longer you steep the tea, the more potent it becomes. I recommend steeping it for at least 24 hours, but longer is even better—48 to 72 hours or even up to a week is fine. However, I wouldn’t go much longer than a week, as the water might start to get funky.

Once you’ve added the worm compost to the water, stir it daily to re-inoculate the water. Just like when you steep tea, the water will become infused with the nutrients from the worm compost. You’ll notice it settles after each stir, so make sure to stir it before using it.

Before using the tea, which we’re going to do right now, I like to stir it again to ensure all the nutrients are mixed in. If you’re using this for hydroponics or even directly in soil, it’s a good idea to strain out the fine particles, as these can clog hydroponic systems or be unnecessary in soil. I usually use a strainer to separate the liquid from the particles. After straining, you can transfer the tea into a watering can for easier application.

Even though there may still be some sediment at the bottom, that’s okay—just avoid adding too much if you’ve steeped the tea for a long time, as most of the nutrients will have already left the worm compost.

Now, I’m going to water this plant with the worm compost tea. This plant has been fertilized with other macronutrient fertilizers, but it seems a bit micronutrient-deficient, so this tea will help address that. You can use worm compost tea on all your plants; they all love it! You’ll likely see a positive change in your plants afterward.

You can store the tea in a covered container, like a rinsed-out gallon jug with a lid, to keep it fresh. Use the tea as often as you like—every watering, every other watering, or every six months. I recommend using it periodically, at least every six months, especially if you haven’t repotted your plants in a while or if they require a lot of watering. Frequent watering can leach micronutrients from the soil.

That’s it for today! Thank you for stopping by. Please leave any comments about indoor gardening tutorials you’d like to see, and remember to like, comment, subscribe, and share this video.

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