AERATE YOUR WORM TEA WITH A FISH TANK BUBBLER

The benefits of using worm tea in your garden are well known. It is certainly the easiest way to bring nutriments and minerals directly to the roots of your plants – precisely where they are needed – and with no risk of burning the delicate root hairs. But it is equally important to realise that the worm tea also carries with it a huge load  of microscopic nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These tiny micro-organisms are beneficial agents with the unique ability to promote the process of nitrogen fixing. a natural process that dramatically enhances the fertility of your soil by creating the valuable nitrates and higher level organic compounds that are needed for plant growth and photosynthesis. These highly beneficial bacteria, originating in the guts of your worms, are excreted in their millions by the worms – carried both within the solids (worm compost) and also within the liquid portion of the excrement (the worm tea).

The answer for getting the best out of your worm tea is to aerate the liquid before feeding it to your plants.

However, after being excreted by the worms, these beneficial microbes, being aerobic bacteria,  need plenty of oxygen to continue to prosper and bloom. In the absence of a source of oxygen, if left in a stagnant collecting sump (or worse – bottled for any length of time), then the microbes will start to die back and their population in the liquid will consequently be drastically reduced. If the mix becomes too anaerobic (lacking oxygen) it will become smelly and putrid and without a healthy load of bacteria, your worm tea will be of  much less benefit to your plants. So a way must be found to give them the oxygen they need.

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