7 Reasons Why You Need to Use Worm Casting Tea in Your Garden

Take your garden and plants to the next level with the benefits of worm tea. Discover why we love using worm castings tea in every garden project and the importance of consistent application.

If there were one thing we wish someone had told us about early in our gardening journey, it would be how to use worm castings and their benefits.

Not only do they have positive environmental implications (another value we share). The derivative products, like worm tea, can also reap many benefits in various gardening aspects.

Hopefully, we’ve caught you early in your gardening journey so you can harness the benefits of worm tea in your next project.

Let’s begin!

7 Benefits of Worm Tea You Need Today

As you can probably tell, worm castings and tea get us excited.

You really can see a notable change in your plants and soil conditions.

NOTE: The benefits below are not listed in any specific order. So feel free to jump between each benefit.

1. Cultivates Your Microorganism Population

Even though it is hard to see, you have a microscopic world living in the soil of your indoor plants and garden.

There is a range of beneficial microorganisms crawling around in the dirt, helping break down organic matter into usable nutrients and minerals for your plants’ roots.

Microorganisms and bacteria make up an essential component of healthy soil, and worm tea can help you achieve the right balance in your indoor plants and outside garden.

Worm tea introduces a variety of microorganisms to your soil, helping to keep a good assortment of beneficial bacteria, microbes, and fungi in your soil.

Not only that, but it also helps feed the existing microorganisms in your soil.

2. It Goes A Long Way

Unlike worm castings, when you make worm tea, you can make a large quantity that will service a large area of your garden OR your entire indoor plant collection.

One of the disadvantages of worm castings is that it takes a long time for your worms to work their way through the food scraps and materials. And even once they are done processing the organic materials, it only produces a small amount which can only go so far.

However, mixing worm castings in water allows you to stretch this comparatively small amount of worm manure into gallons of nutrient-rich liquid fertilizer. Which means you can spread the love across your entire garden.

3. Easier Application

Worm tea is also easier to apply to your plants and garden projects.

Don’t get us wrong. We love to get our hands dirty (it’s in our tagline). But it can be hard work and taxing on the lower back.

So rather than manually mixing worm castings into the soil, why not use an equally nutritious mixture of worm tea that will quickly absorb into the ground and reach the deep roots of your plant?

4. Improved Soil Structure

Not only does worm tea add many beneficial nutrients, but it can also improve your soil’s properties.

Worm castings and tea help the soil become a rich humus texture with increased soil aeration. A fantastic by-product of feeding the microfauna in your soil and increasing the microbial population is increasing the soil’s ability to absorb and retain moisture.

With increased water availability in the soil, your plants will flourish and have a higher tolerance to periods of intensely hot, dry weather.

5. Protects Your Plants from Pests and Diseases

Did you know worm tea can help your plants fight against plant disease and pests?

By encouraging the growth of beneficial microbes and bacteria, worm tea can help your plants become resistant to particular diseases, like root rot.

A study by Ohio State University showed that aerated worm teas were effective at suppressing diseases in tomato plants raised in a soilless system.

6. Accelerate Composting Process

Worms are a vital component in the composting process.

Therefore, it makes sense that adding worm tea to your worm compost bins or piles will boost the process and accelerate the breakdown of your organic materials.

When you apply worm tea to the soil, you feed the microfauna in your compost, increasing their population. This results in increased microbial activity and faster decomposition of your green and brown materials.

7. Environmentally Friendly

And even though we have listed this benefit of worm tea last on our list, it is actually one of the main reasons we actively and consistently use it in our garden projects.

Worm tea is a 100% organic fertilizer that is a naturally occurring product. This means it has zero environmental impact, which can be credited with improving the environment.

When compared to chemical fertilizers that are commercially produced, it isn’t hard to see which one we prefer.

Our worms survive on a diet of scraps sourced directly from our kitchen, which results in fewer materials ending up in landfill and less of an impact on our wonderful world.

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References

• Microfauna. (2023, January 29). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microfauna
• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280079732_Effects_of_vermicompost_teas_on_plant_growth_and_disease