Use the free Compost Tea Schedule Planner below, right in your browser. No sign-up, no software to install, and nothing is sent to a server.
Compost tea is simply finished compost steeped in aerated water, and a schedule planner turns an occasional experiment into a reliable garden habit. The tool asks for your crop group, how many brews you want each month, and your bucket size, then gives you a brew time, a gap between brews, and the amount of compost each brew needs. Those three numbers are enough to run a small-space brewing routine without waste or guesswork.
Aerated compost tea means air bubbles through the brew the whole time, usually from a small aquarium pump. The bubbles keep oxygen levels high so that helpful microbes multiply instead of the sour, oxygen-hating ones that grow in still water. A non-aerated soak, sometimes called a compost extract, is a different thing: it is made in hours, used at once, and does not carry the same microbial story. This planner is built for aerated brews, which most home gardeners mean when they say compost tea.
Brew time changes with the crop you plan to feed. Leafy greens and root crops do well with a shorter brew of about twenty-four hours, while fruiting plants and flowers benefit from a slightly longer brew of thirty to thirty-six hours. Longer is not always better: after about forty-eight hours the food in the brew runs out, microbes die back, and the tea can turn sour. The planner keeps you inside the useful window for your crop group.
The gap between brews matters as much as the brew itself. Two brews a month, roughly every fifteen days, is a strong routine for most gardens in the growing season. Weekly brews suit heavy feeders like tomatoes in peak summer, while monthly brews are plenty for lawns and established perennials. The planner converts your chosen brews per month into a simple gap in days, so you can mark brew days on a calendar and keep the habit steady.
Equipment for small spaces is modest. A clean bucket, an aquarium air pump with a stone, finished compost in a mesh bag or old pillowcase, and a little unsulphured molasses as microbe food are all you need. Use rainwater or tap water left standing overnight so chlorine can fade, because chlorine slows the microbes you are trying to grow. Keep the bucket out of direct sun and away from strong smells while it brews.
The brewing steps are easy to follow. Fill the bucket with water, start the pump, hang the compost bag so water flows through it, add a spoonful of molasses per twenty litres, and let it bubble for the planner brew time. The tea should smell earthy and slightly sweet, like good compost. A sour, rotten, or ammonia smell means something went wrong: throw that batch away, clean the bucket and stone well, and start again with fresh compost and clean water.
Applying the tea is the easy part, but timing helps. Water it into the soil in the cool of the evening or on a cloudy morning, so microbes reach the root zone without drying out in strong sun. A watering can with the rose removed avoids clogging, and a coarse spray works for leaves if you strain the tea well first. Use the whole batch the same day you finish brewing, because stored tea loses its microbes fast and can turn unpleasant within a day.
Safety rules are not optional with compost tea. Never brew from compost that contains fresh manure, and never use tea on leafy crops that will be eaten raw unless you are certain the compost was fully finished and hot-composted. Wash hands after handling tea, wash produce well, and keep brews away from children and pets while they bubble. These cautions keep a helpful garden practice safely in the helpful category.
Compost tea is a supplement, not a replacement for compost itself. It adds microbes and a little soluble nutrition, but it does not build soil structure the way digging in solid compost does. Think of tea as a regular tonic between solid feeds: a fortnightly brew plus a seasonal layer of finished compost gives plants both the biology and the bulk they need. Gardens fed this way often show livelier soil and steadier growth over a season.
Season shapes the schedule. Start brews when growth picks up in spring, keep the routine through summer, and taper off as growth slows in autumn. Cold water brews slowly, so winter brews are rarely worth the effort for small gardens. Note each brew date, the crop fed, and what you noticed afterwards, and by next year you will have a personal schedule that beats any generic chart.
Try the tool above with your crop group and bucket size, then set your first brew day. A small pump, a bucket, and a bag of finished compost are all it takes to add a living feed to your garden routine, and the planner keeps the timing honest so every batch counts.
Versión en español: Planificador de Calendario de Té de Compost Para Espacios Pequeños