I just started to make vermicompost tea with our very own vermicompost! This was our first time using vermicompost, and we didn’t know what to do with it. If we wanted to directly dig a hole and dump the compost inside near a tree, it not only will be expensive in labor, but it also will not be enough for all our trees. Hence, I came up with the idea of making compost tea.

There are two main ways to make compost tea. One is compost wash, which is made by washing the compost and getting that concentrated liquid to give to the plants, but on the downside, there will not be that much bacterial activity. The other way is A.A.C.T (Actively Aerated Compost Tea), by making this we will just be multiplying the aerobic bacteria which are already inside the vermicompost.

I made A.A.C.T by taking a barrel with approximately 75 liters of water and tying about 1 – 2 kg of vermicompost in a cloth. Next, I hung the cloth inside the drum and dropped an air stone inside the drum. The only drawback is that the compressor from which the air stone came from is also used for multiplying our other Biofertilizers, so the motor is timed preventing me from switching it on for the whole process. In A.A.C.T we have to turn on the aerator for the whole process which will take anywhere from 36 to 48 hours to get ready, and we should not let it sit for longer than that because then the bacteria would not have food and start to die. My first try was not that successful because there was no foam on top of the liquid, indicating that the bacteria were not active. I think it was because we didn’t turn on the aerator for the whole process.

In the second batch, I added cow urine and jaggery to the whole process, and the foam was amazing, but there are now two confusions. One was that now we don’t know if the bacteria from the compost is multiplying or the bacteria from the cow urine is multiplying. The other confusion is that we don’t know if this foam is caused by cow urine or if is it caused by the jaggery. So, the third time I left out the cow urine and only added jaggery. The result was sad, it clearly showed the foam came from the cow urine bacteria. Even if this was a sad result, I learned how powerful cow urine was by doing another experiment after this. I just poured diluted cow urine and aerated it, within 10 minutes the liquid was not visible because there was about 1 foot of foam!!!!