Worm Farms & Making Compost Tea (on-farm workshop)

Description

This hands-on half-day workshop will introduce you to two easy ways to supercharge your soil by building a worm farm and brewing your own compost tea.

Healthy soil is the basis for healthy food production. Healthy soil relies on critters like worms, as well as microscopic organisms (e.g., bacteria and fungi) that can be brewed in compost tea.

Too often our soil is depleted and low in fertility, which can result in all sorts of problems in the garden or on the farm. Unfortunately, the common solution of adding fertilisers only makes the problem worse.

Restoring fertility to soil is dependent on establishing a thriving world of organisms in the soil. Worm farms and compost tea are both easy and dynamic ways to do it quickly.

This workshop will introduce you to the wonderful world of worms, fungi, bacteria, and other tiny microbes that live in healthy soil. You’ll learn their important roles in helping your plants grow.

During the second part of the workshop, you’ll see how simple it is to make a worm farm from a polystyrene box and learn how to make a home-scale compost tea brewer from simple, easy-to-source components.

By the end of this workshop, you’ll know how to make your own worm farm, how to multiply the benefits of worm castings many millions of times by brewing compost tea, and how to make your own brewer. You’ll learn how to create supercharged soil that uses less water, stores more carbon, and grows more disease-resistant plants that produce healthier food.

Who is this workshop for?

• People who are interested in gardening
• People who already grow, or want to grow, their own fruit or vegetables
• People who rent houses with fruit trees or gardens in the backyard
• People who look after fruit trees or gardens in the community
• People who are interested in permaculture, organics, growing their own food, or food security
• People who already grow, or are interested in growing, food commercially

What does this workshop cover?

• Soil microbes – the different types, what they do, and how they are connected to one another
• Worm farm basics and different types of worm farms
• The benefits of using worm castings in your garden
• The difference between compost tea and compost extract
• Brewing compost tea
• How to make a compost tea brewer at home
• Making different types of compost tea for different situations
• How to avoid brewing the wrong types of microbes
• How to know if your compost tea is healthy

What’s provided?

• Workshop notes
• Plans to build your own compost tea brewer
• Instructions for how to build a simple worm farm in a polystyrene box
• Afternoon tea

What you need to bring:

• A pen and paper for note-taking (notes will be emailed to participants after the workshop)
• Appropriate warm and outdoor clothing

Workshop presenter:

The workshop is taught by Hugh, whose experience with soil microbes, compost tea brewing, and microscopes has taught him the crucial difference between making a compost tea brew that is teeming with life, and producing brown water!

What people are saying about this workshop:

“Excellent, clear, friendly, accessible, great info and practical hands-on.”
Rita Gyorffy, central Victoria

SPECIAL NOTES:

1. Grow Great Fruit members receive a 50% discount on all on-farm workshops. The discount will be automatically applied at checkout.
2. If you’re staying for both workshops on June 11 please bring something to share for lunch. We’ll provide soup and bread.
3. Please do a COVID test before coming to the workshop, and if you have a positive result or are feeling unwell, stay home (refunds will be available for non-attendance due to illness).
4. A reminder email will be sent out in the week before the workshop, which will also give location details.