MANUALLY AERATED WORM TEA — TUTORIAL
So just like any other time in the history of my worm farming profession (not really a profession, just something I’ve grown to love), I watched a few YouTube videos on ‘how to make worm tea?’ only to realize that I didn’t have the time, tools or energy to make the worm tea that I saw on the internet. Until I saw one YouTube short that showed a woman manually aerating her worm tea and I knew once again, I had doubted that some things, like worm tea — can in fact be simple when doubt is left at the door. Yes, worms indeed need ideal living conditions, but being an inexperienced worm farmer has allowed me to experiment, observe and assess our bins. We started with one bin and we’re now up to 6 bins! All thanks to our household food waste. If the worms have food, they’ll reproduce. I plan to downsize bins as soon as I can harvest a couple of them. I’m waiting for the worms to finish all of their food. Plus, it’s super hot outside, so harvesting has taken a back seat to the heat because my bins are outside. I am still feeding the worms and you can see what we feed our worms here — https://thewildbungalow.com/the-blo/2024/5/21/whatdowormseat-my-red-wiggler-composting-worms-eisenia-fetida
I made worm tea last summer and it didn’t work out the way I had planned. We poured it over a patch of grass and the grass died. I think at a certain point in summer, most grass dies unless it’s given amendments. I don’t know a ton about grass, but as I walked passed some houses today, I couldn’t help but notice how dry the grasses were. So assuming it was the heat and not the worm tea, I tried again this year. Our sage, nearly a week after the worm tea was poured onto it, actually looks a few inches taller! I don’t have fancy aeration tools, like some of the tools I saw in the worm tea YouTube videos I watched. Aeration is necessary so that the microbes stay alive and don’t become anaerobic. I saw one video where a lady hand aerated her worm tea, so I thought I’d try this method! Here’s exactly what I did to avoid the worm tea going anaerobic, step by step along with the tools I used — that I already had on hand.
Here’s a list of what you’ll need for your manually aerated worm tea:
A clean bucket — mine is 2 1/2 gallons
Worm castings — I used about 3 cups
Water — I used city water, but let it off-gas for about a day
A stir stick — I found a stick in the yard and rinsed it clean.
Something to mimic a tea bag (an old t-shirt or sock, a canvas bag, etc). I used a canvas bag like these — https://amzn.to/3zFU9dX
First, I cleaned the bucket and added water.
Next, I let the water off-gas for about 24 hours.
I then added worm castings to my canvas bag and put into the water, stirring aggressively to get the microbes moving.
I let sit in the shade and stirred multiple times a day for 2-3 days.
After I felt that the worm tea was dark in color, I added it to the areas of the garden that I felt needed a mid-summertime boost.
Here are the results of the manually aerated worm tea:
My culinary sage was lacking in growth and looked like it was being nibbled on by garden creatures. Here is a photo I took 4 days after I applied the worm tea & it’s developing new, bright green leaves at the top & has some visible growth! I didn’t take a picture when I first applied it, but I’ll continue to add photos to this blog post, as the season carries on.
If you have any questions, or suggestions please drop them in the comments below.
Happy gardening!
Waynna
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I did a quick reel on my #wormtea process and you can find it on Instagram here —https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9VhM2ZyAEX/?igsh=eWFzdjAzYjF5aTE2
Culinary Sage | Manually Aerated Worm Tea