How to Make the Best Compost Tea Fertilizer: A DIY Guide

Written by: Luke Marion

Published on June 26, 2026

Updated on June 26, 2026

Did you know that any gardener can make amazing fertilizer for basically free?! It’s time I let you in on this secret and spill the tea on plant nutrition!

A man demonstrating how to make compost tea.

There are so many gardeners talking about compost tea, but many overcomplicate the process. Whether you grow organically or not, you can make this recipe yourself in minutes, and the benefits can be incredible for your plants!

Let’s have a garden tea party, just don’t ask anyone to drink what we’re brewing. This garden blend is strictly for the plants.

Product Spotlight

The Best Organic Fertilizers

You may believe, like many others, that to have an organic garden, you must sacrifice optimum growth and yields in exchange for chemical-free fruits and vegetables. But it doesn’t have to be one or the other!

There are a surprising number of effective options for fertilizing an organic garden. My favorite go-to for my own garden and orchard is Trifecta fertilizer.

But I also love to make and use homemade fertilizers, especially compost tea and the others listed below, some of which are very inexpensive!

What is Compost Tea

In short, compost tea is a liquid fertilizer made by steeping quality finished compost in water. It has also been touted to help with plant disease-suppression.

I have been making compost tea for going on 16 to 17 years, starting when compost tea was just becoming popularized on the internet, and I have noticed immense benefits from it! So, let me explain the science behind it.

If you’ve got a beautiful compost pile, you’ll notice that the grass around the edges of that pile gets super green. Why is that? It is because rain and water passing through the compost create leachate.

Leachate is any liquid that permeates and seeps through a solid material, absorbing substances along the way. In the case of the compost pile, water carries the water-soluble nutrients down away from the compost, where it seeps into the soil and feeds the plants, which is evidenced in their bright green color.

That is essentially what we are doing when making compost tea, expediting the process of leaching nutrients and beneficial microbes from the compost so we can apply them directly to our garden.

Advantages of This Compost Tea Recipe

After many seasons of rain, winter weather, and growing crops, you’ll find that soil nutrients get depleted over time. That is why it is important to consistently replenish nutrients if you want to have a thriving and productive garden.

The reason the compost tea fertilizer works so well is that it stimulates plant growth and yields by providing water-soluble, plant-available nutrients that can be used immediately. It is a great way to add nitrogen to soil and also phosphorus, potassium, humic acids, beneficial bacteria and fungi, and lots of trace minerals.

"It’s long been recognized by organic growers and researchers that the use of compost can help prevent some plant diseases. So, it makes sense that liquids derived from compost could also have disease-suppressive characteristics. Besides stimulating growth, compost and compost ‘juice’ can also help fight off diseases by inoculating plants with beneficial organisms."

Vern Grubinger - University of Vermont Extension

Necessary Ingredients & Supplies

Compost tea is one of the simplest things you can do for your garden. Here’s a list of the supplies you will need to make a high-quality compost tea:

Buckets - You will need two 5-gallon buckets for each batch of tea.
Water - I’m going to use water from the pond on our farm. Collected rainwater is another great option. You can also use tap water, but if your tap water contains chlorine, it will act as a disinfectant and kill the beneficial microorganisms in your tea! Pro-Tip: Let tap water sit in an open container for 24–48 hours to allow the chlorine to evaporate before making tea if you want to take advantage of the beneficial bacteria and fungi found in compost.
Finished Compost - I honestly never really measure the amount of compost that I use. With a garden trowel, I use 4, 5, or 6 heaping scoops of finished compost per 5-gallon bucket.
Garden Trowel - I use a garden trowel to scoop the compost.
Stir Stick - You will need something to stir the compost into the water. I use a metal rod, but a shovel, a long-handled trowel, a bamboo stake, or a similar tool should work fine.
Watering Can - Depending on how you want to apply your compost tea, you will need a watering can or a pump sprayer.

How to Make Compost Tea For Plants

There are so many recipes and variations out there for brewing compost tea. Since I have kind of been at the forefront of compost tea making over the years, I’ve watched it get over-complicated and never really understood why some people make it seem so difficult.

Making compost tea is so unbelievably simple! This is all I do to make compost tea fertilizer:

A man filling buckets with water.

Fill Buckets - Fill your buckets with water that is above 40°F. Remember to let tap water sit in an open container for 24–48 hours to allow the chlorine to evaporate before making tea.
Add Compost - Add 4, 5, or 6 heaping scoops of high-quality finished compost to each 5-gallon bucket. Pro-Tip: The great thing about using compost tea is that you can’t really mess it up. You can’t overdo the amount of compost you add to the water, and if you don’t add enough compost, it will simply be weaker and more diluted, but still beneficial.
Stir the Mixture - Stir up the compost tea mixture to suspend the compost in the water.
Steep the Tea - Compost tea gets its name because the compost is steeped in the water. Let the tea steep for 10 minutes. The finished compost tea should be the color of dark chocolate milk.

A lot of people, especially “online gurus”, will tell you to steep your tea overnight, add a bubbler, add all this sugar or other additives, and such. It’s not wrong that the longer you steep it, the more the beneficial bacteria can be colonized, but it's just not necessary.

Science shows that almost all water-soluble nutrients will be absorbed into the water within 5 to 10 minutes of adding water above 40°F. I don’t want to sit around and wait a whole day just for a negligible benefit.

This recipe gets the maximum benefit in the minimum amount of time. After 10 minutes of steeping, the additional benefit added by letting it steep overnight is just marginal. Now this could be totally anecdotal, but over the 16+ years that I have been making compost tea, I have never noticed much improvement with increased steeping time.

How to Apply Fertilizer Tea

Compost fertilizer tea is something you can do even if you’re already fertilizing your crops. I use Trifecta+ fertilizer on everything, but I still use compost tea because it is super fast-acting.

You can use this compost tea recipe every single time you water if you want to because it is very, very gentle. If someone tells you otherwise, they’re lying to you!

You can pour the finished compost tea into a watering can and use it directly on plants at 100% strength, or you can dilute it further by adding more fresh water.

There are two different application methods to choose from: root drench and foliar feed. To use the root drench method, simply apply the compost tea around the base of the plant to drench the roots. I recommend this method if there has been a lot of rain or the weather has been damp and cold.

A man applying a foliar spray to garden plants.

You can also apply fertilizer tea with a pump sprayer. If you want to use a sprayer, let the tea sit for an additional 10 to 15 minutes to let more of the sediment settle to the bottom.

Then strain the compost tea through a really fine mesh, like a paint strainer, to catch all the sediment that would clog up the sprayer, leaving the very bottom portion that is thick with sand, silt, and debris in the bucket.

To use the foliar feed method, dump or spray the compost tea right on the plants so that the leaves are covered in the water-soluble nutrients. As mentioned previously, this can help prevent diseases and even pests.

This method colonizes the leaves with beneficial aerobic bacteria and beneficial fungi to reduce the amount of space available on the leaf for harmful bacteria and fungi. Studies have shown that using a foliar feed of compost tea can reduce issues like powdery mildew, early blight and septorial blight, and fusarium wilt.

What not to put in compost tea?

Similarly to making compost, avoid putting these additives in compost tea: meat, bones, dairy, manure, grease or oil, synthetic and non-biodegradable materials, and highly acidic or toxic plant material.

Are there food safety concerns when using compost tea on crops?

According to the FORMAL RECOMMENDATION BY THE NATIONAL ORGANIC STANDARDS BOARD, “compost tea made without compost tea additives can be applied without restriction”.

What about adding sugars to help boost the beneficial bacteria count?

You can try that if you want to! MIgardener has a phenomenal product called Sassy Lass (which is powdered molasses mixed with humic and fulvic acid). You can add it to the compost tea before applying, but adding it to water when watering plants has the exact same benefit. (Some people have raised questions about the safety of using simple sugar sources in compost tea, but the risk comes when you are fermenting or brewing the tea, not simply steeping it for 10 minutes like this recipe calls for. “The critical determinant regarding pathogen growth in compost teas and extracts is the addition of the carbon sources like sugars, molasses, or yeast or malt extracts during the “brewing” phase.” Source: FORMAL RECOMMENDATION BY THE NATIONAL ORGANIC STANDARDS BOARD on safety of compost tea.)