Make Compost Extract in 15 mins.

Latest Update 5th February 2020.

This luxuriant display is wholly dependent on the activities of beneficial microbes and their predators in the soil and on their foliage.  If this Soil Foodweb is nurtured skillfully, your crops will prosper.

I use compost extract on all my garden beds.  It enriches the organic materials already in the soil by adding beneficial microbes, humus and soluble plant available nutrients.

Its more than usually important to provide an ongoing renewal of the beneficial microbes in Ecobeds, where the soil is isolated from soil in the rest of the garden.

Compost extract is made by extracting humus, other nutrients and beneficial microorganisms from active homemade compost using rainwater.  The process is described below. 

Its very simple, I use a paint strainer bag containing a large handful (about 150grams) of fresh homemade compost, closed tightly using twine.

The bag is massaged vigorously by hand for at least 30 seconds in 18 litres of clean rainwater.  This extracts the beneficial microbes and nutrients from the compost turning the water dark brown.  You can massage it longer if the extract continues to darken.

The compost bag is removed and the extract diluted in more clean rainwater to make four 9 litre batches.  I use this immediately by watering it onto my soil close to plant roots, some of it is watered onto my lawn, and some onto the compost in my propagators.  I use the spent compost directly on the soil in my drip line irrigated beds, where it makes a fine mulch.

Organic farmers only use about 20 litres of extract per acre.  They dilute considerably before applying it, of course, but unless you are up for the cost of a microscope and the training that goes with it (to ensure the appropriate microbes are added to their soil), its best to just use the higher concentrations I am suggesting above.  Your plants will sort out which microbes they want to engage with in symbiotic relationship.