Well, Aerated compost tea is VERY EFFECTIVE when done right but it appears too many people has no idea what they are doing. Molasses is not really needed. Actually, I strongly discourage it. You get enough of bacteria from the compost alone anyway. The key is to getting enough fungi which is hard to do. Apparently, the best way to do is have a pan of compost (a gallon amount for 5g bucket), sprinkle fungal food on top of it (or mix it in?), give it a little filtered water. It can't be too wet. Just enough that you can barely get a drop of water out of it when squeezed in your hand. It can be baby oatmeal, corn meal, soybean meal, kelp meal to name a few (at least that is what I'd try, maybe a bit of each to get most diversity of fungi species) for fungi to feed on and multiply. Cover it with aluminum foil and leave it in dark cool dry place like the garage and wait a week or two. You should see a mass of fungi growing sorta like santa's beard. You should have much better fungal count that way. Brew it in a mesh bag and brew it for no more than 24 hours. Keep it out of sunlight. Soil drenching is my preferred method. Foilar spraying takes a bit of work. You must find right type of sprayer where it won't clog up. I don't bother it since I don't feel like spending $$$ for a 4g sprayer with right type of nozzle sprayer so I just give every plant a soil drench except for the lawn with a cup of tea around the root zone. I do that for new plants only though. I don't think the older plants that has gotten them in the past really needed anymore unless they don't look healthy for some reason and tray again. Soil Food Web is probably the best place to learn about compost tea. I don't know where else that has that kind of expertise in aerated compost tea. They are very serious about having proper set of organisms so they do a lot of testing to make sure they are in there before applying them. A lot of guys here just make compost tea and hope they work. Just really doesn't work that way unfortunately. You could be missing out important organisms like amoeba, protozoan, fungi species while having bacteria only. It's too easy to blame it on compost tea and say it doesn't work if it has never been tested to find out what exactly it had like a lot of people here do. Here is a link that might be useful: SFI info about compost

Hi, I am somewhat dissapointed today,,,,, I got my compost delivered and generally the quality seems fine. Inside of the 10 tons pile its really warm. When I showel it into my wheelbarrow it´s steaming. It smells as well "good". BUT,,,,,,, I have a problem with bringig it to my lawn,,,,,, there is pieces of roots, wood, bark in the compost which are apparentely still worked by bacteria and fungi. Those pieces are warm as well and feel soft. But if I bring this on my lawn , the wood-pieces will stay on top of the turf and only smallest pieces sink onto the soil. Even if I brush it in different directions, back and forward..... What can I do? Leave the compost on a pile until the wood decomposes further ? Or "filter" the bigger pieces from the smaller ones (lots of work probably). My father in law opts for anyhow throwing the compost to the lawn,,,,,,,,, but its not him that is going to ruin his new lawn-mower cutting bark, wood and roots with the next lawnmowing.... Any info welcome,,,, Thanks & a nice weekend,,,,,

I never have done a experiment where I sprayed some plants with compost tea, and had others for comparison. I spray them all every three weeks or so, and hope for the best. I seem to have less wilt and blight than other nearby tomato growers, but that could be due to a number of factors. I use compost as mulch, space the plants further apart than anyone else, cut off affected leaves, and try to maintain max space between the ground and bottom tom leaves. No one else nearby does this. One woman bought 20 patio tom plants and put them container against container. Compost tea is one of a number of things that can improve things. But the best tomato year I ever had was when I put three bluegill in the bottom of the hole when planting. If you want great tasting toms in October, the best advice I could give is to plant some cherry tomatoes. The big fruit toms don't taste like much in the fall.

I started using compost tea this year on lawn and flower garden after reading about it in the book, "Teaming With Microbes." The book tries to show how compost tea is the best practice in organic gardening. Yes, you should head over to the compost and/or organic gardening forums in order to get expert advice. My notes on a few comments people have added here (caveat: I am a compost tea newbie): (1) I suspect that brewing without forced aeration (e.g., air pump like that in fish tanks) is inefficient and may not result in compost tea with full effectiveness. (2) Only used AGED compost (or manure). (3) You should aerate the water BEFORE adding the (aged) compost, in order to remove chlorine. Using the bubble aerator for an hour in the bucket of water should work, then you can add the compost. (4) I use around 4 cups of aged compost in pantyhose in a 5-gallon bucket of water, and brew for 12-24 hours. It's a very efficient use of limited quantities of compost, since the brewing process multiplies the microbes many times over. At the end, you'll see lots of frothy bubbles on the top, and the stuff should smell earthy, not rotten. (5) Advanced brewers: look up how to pre-treat your compost (prior to brewing tea) to increase the fungal content. (6) Do it every couple of weeks early on; slowly migrate to every month or two. (7) The claimed advantages of this organic gardening practice are significantly decreased water usage by the plants (by improved root systems, particularly due to mychorrizal fungi), improved balance in microbial content of the soil, and better pH for the soil. (8) A complete brewing system can be bought online for $100 or so, or put together yourself for much less.