Every farmer's top priority should be to improve the soil on their farmland, whether it is big or small. To a large extent, soil health influences how well your plants grow. Generally, getting your plants leafy and productive starts with enriching the soil with all essential nutrients, and worm casting tea does just that.

For the soil, worm casting tea aids aeration and water retention. In addition, your plants will stand a higher chance of resisting attacks from pests and pathogens. For these reasons, you should learn how to make worm tea from worm castings.

Online, you will find so much information about making worm tea. However, the amount of information available online is rather dense. You might not know where to start, or who to trust. That’s why we’ve compiled this guide to help you make your own worm tea at home.

Worm Tea — What Is It?

When earthworms feed on scraps, they excrete like other animals. It is from the excreted waste (also known as worm poo and worm casting) that you get worm tea, and it is the product of soaking worm castings in water. The worm casting tea you will get has significant microbiological benefits, which we shall discuss in detail.

So, to simply put it, worm tea is an organic fertilizer obtained after leaving worm poop in water for some hours. You can apply worm tea to both the soil and plants. Rest assured that it doesn't burn the leaves. All worm tea does is enrich the plants and soil.

It is essential to keep worm tea away from direct sunlight. That way, it can stay for three days. Just ensure the environment is quite cool. However, you have just a day or two to use the compost in environments with high temperatures.

Benefits

There are several reasons why the demand for worm tea is so high. For one, it’s suitable for all plant types, including gardens, beds, and lawns. Additionally, the tea helps prevent pests and improves soil health. Moreover, worm casting tea enhances your soil’s nutrient retention. This means that your soil will provide your plants with the minerals and nutrients they need for longer.

How Do You Make Worm Tea?

Making worm tea is not a complex process. First things first, let’s identify the materials needed for the entire process.

Materials Needed

All you need to make worm tea is high-quality worm castings, a bag, a bucket, and of course, water.

This is the most important component of all. There are two ways to get worm poop. You can either collect it yourself via a worm compost or buy from farm supply shops where the product is already packaged for retail or wholesale.

As I noted earlier, all you need to do to make casting is get earthworms to eat scraps and produce the waste. That is a significant task if you do not have an existing compost pile.

However, since worm poo is not that expensive, you will also get excellent results if you buy it from the farm shop. However, if you decide to buy, ensure the castings are not a mixture of something else. Sometimes, to maximize gains, people get into the habit of mixing soil and other compost with worm castings.

Ideally, water for making worm tea should be free of chlorine. So natural water supply from rain, streams, or wells will be perfect. It’s okay if the water that you have is chlorinated. This is what you can do- leave the can of water open, exposed to the air outside for a day. This will allow the chlorine compound in the water to evaporate.

The sole function of the bag is to avoid clogging when you're applying your vermicompost. So, any porous material will do. You could get pantyhose or a cheesecloth. If neither of these is available, you can improvise by using a cotton shirt or a towel.

You need a medium-sized bucket to soak the worm poop in the  water and hold it till the tea is ready for use. On an average scale, a five-gallon capacity bucket would be adequate. If you're making a large quantity of worm tea, you might need a bigger container.

Also, you will need to have some teaspoons of molasses. We add molasses to the mixture to aid the growth of microorganisms.

Procedure

So, how do you combine all of these to create worm tea? By following these six simple steps:

1. Pour some unchlorinated water into the bucket.
2. Add some molasses to the worm castings and stir carefully.
3. Once the worm castings and molasses are well-mixed, proceed to pour the mixture into the porous bag, tie the bag, and place it in the bucket of water. Do this carefully, so water doesn't spill on the floor.
4. Leave it to soak for some hours. For instance, if you placed the bag in the bucket of water in the afternoon or evening, wait till the following day and stir it a second time. You should see a dark brown colored compost.
5. Next, take the porous bag from the bucket of water and transfer its contents into your compost pile or a watering can if you do not have a compost pile.
6. Add some water to the bucket and stir till the color lightens.

A quick tip: Apply to your garden immediately to get the best benefits from your worm tea. Otherwise, keep in the shade where the temperature is cool.

Conclusion

If you’ve been meaning to enhance the growth and look of your garden, we hope this article has taught you how to make worm tea from worm castings at home. With some worm castings, molasses, a porous bag, and a bucket of water, you can give your plants the extra boost of nutrients they need to flourish.

That said, it’s important to note that the quality of the worm tea you make at home will depend on the quality of the worm castings you use. So, ensure you buy only the best quality worm castings. If you plan to collect worm castings yourself using a worm farm at home, ensure that you provide your worms with a high-quality diet.