Backyard Compost and Compost Tea Work Wonders

Composting can be simple, or high tech.  But compost is what nature does naturally under canopies of trees, under bushes, under groundcover...in the thin layer between air and soil. 

Doug Green highly recommends composting strategies that make great common sense...and he takes it a step further with "compost tea".

Compost is the heart and soul of the garden and the more research that’s done on soil structure and health, the more that compost and composting becomes important for both home and commercial gardening. If you do nothing else this summer, get the compost bin working. And if you have compost working and want to take it one step further for your lawn and garden health, learn to make compost tea. Making tea properly allows you to take the small amount of compost you make and multiply it like loaves and fishes so your entire property gets the benefit. (DougGreensGarden.com)

Compost Tea

By using compost tea to replace chemical-based fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides, you can garden safer and be more protective of the environment. Pennsylvania Dept. of Environmental Protection gives an easy pictorial guide to making compost tea:

Supplies needed: 2 - 5 gallon buckets 1 gallon mature compost 1 aquarium pump 1 gang valve (to divide the air supply into several streams) 4 gallons of water 3 feet + of aquarium hose unsulfured molasses

And Wikipedia provides more options for selecting different kinds of compost tea and how Europe handles this earth friendly solution for ground nutrition.

Wikipedia:  There are several kinds of compost tea, depending on the method and ingredients with which the tea is made. In Europe compost teas are largely distinguished on the basis of whether or not they have manure content, the latter preferred for having more consistent disease suppressive capabilities.