Proper fertilization and nutrient monitoring are key to the development of a strong vibrant landscape that will last for generations to come.  Ohashi Landscape Services understands the importance of protecting our clients’ investments through the use of safe organic treatments to maximize plants’ performance, growth, and longevity.

Our commitment to ecologically sound principles and solutions ensures a ‘green’ program intended to protect the environment, our clients, their families, and pets.

Our specially trained staff includes licensed pesticide applicators to ensure proper treatments.

Compost Tea

What is Compost Tea?

Compost tea is an aerobically-brewed liquid extract made from good quality microbial foods. Compost tea properly made has only beneficial organisms and nutrients that are essential for plant and soil health.

What are the benefits of compost tea?

Benefits include improved soil structure, retention of nutrients, cycling of nutrients into plant available forms, and reduced plant stress. Disease organisms may be displaced by the normal set of soil or foliar organisms in the tea.

Compost tea also breaks down compacted soils with repeated use, letting roots grow into the soil more easily, allowing them to find more nutrients, and letting air into the soil so conditions are not right for diseases to grow, or for toxic metabolites of anaerobic organisms to build up. All plants will gain health and vitality with continued use.

Compost tea puts the micro-biology back into the soil that we have removed because of our over-development and chemical application practices. This biology has co-evolved with plants for billions of years and is critical for plants to function within their environment.

When applied to the foliage of plants, compost tea covers the plant surfaces and prevents harmful material from reaching the plant, including disease organisms. Increased carbon dioxide from the respiration of the bacteria and fungi increases the time that stomates open and let foliar nutrients into the leaves. When tea is applied to the soil, it improves the soil structure, increases nutrient uptake, breaks down pollutants and reduces water use.

How to Use Compost Tea

Compost tea can be sprayed on foliage, twigs, branches and trunks (the entirety of the plant), drenched into the soil, injected into the soil for established roots, and used as root dip for bare root, juvenile plants and cuttings, and can be applied through established irrigation systems .

When using tea as a foliar application to leaves, twigs, and branches, tea must cover at least 70% of leaf surfaces. Apply until coverage is thick enough before it drips off the leaf. Finer mists will attain better coverage and a better spray pattern. Wetting and adhesive agents are available to assist in leaf coverage. When using as a soil drench, tea needs to be applied so it moves down into the soil to aid roots.

When using as a soil application, high ratios of water can assist in carrying the compost tea further into the soil. Deep root injections will need specialized injection equipment. As a root dip, use full strength. Application through established irrigation systems requires specialized irrigation injection systems.

Why are repeated applications important?

Environmental conditions, although they vary, commonly include numerous negative impacts that kill the microbial populations on an ongoing basis. This includes air pollution, dust, prior pesticide and herbicide use, drift and overspray, synthetic fertilizers, salinization, water pollution, chlorine, current building and agricultural practices that ignore soil life, over or under watering, compacted soils, unusual freeze, drought, flood, etc.

Repeated applications re-establish the beneficial microbes that suffer or can be killed under the above abuses.

When to Use Compost Tea

Compost tea may be applied almost any time of year, except in cold weather conditions when soil is below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Compost tea can be applied at any time of the day in large enough droplets of water to prevent harmful uv radiation from reaching the organisms. Compost tea is full of living entities, and when sprayed in most favorable conditions gives the most favorable environment for the microbes to establish and colonize. When using fine mists, avoid times with intense sunlight.

Repeated applications are essential and critical to establishing and maintaining beneficial microbial populations.

How Often Do We Apply Compost Tea?

Like any living organism, beneficial microbes have life spans that could be unlimited if not impacted by negative forces or outside pollutants. Environmental conditions alter these life spans, as do soil conditions. For disease control, compost tea must be applied to foliage at regular intervals to ensure adequate leaf coverage is maintained. Once on the leaf, weather conditions impact coverage of leaf surfaces over time.

Once a system is in a condition of health, a good rule-of-thumb is three yearly applications, spring, summer and fall. When first beginning an organic program using compost tea, we recommend applications more frequently – up to four to five times the first season, or more if conditions dictate. If disease is severe, tea applications may need to be weekly, until the threat of disease attack is subsided.

How long can we store it?

Compost tea should be used immediately after brewing for the maximum microbial population. After aeration ceases, the tea should be used within 4 TO 6 hours to maintain an adequate population to be successful. The microbial population can drop to a point where it is ineffective if the tea is not maintained aerobically, or it is placed in too hot or freezing cold environments.

Professional applicators can prolong the life in compost tea by using aeration, agitation, and additional food sources in measured quantities in their equipment.

How long do microbes live in the soil?

Colonies of beneficial microorganisms continue to live in soil as long as they are provided good conditions and organic food sources. Stressful conditions in the soil will make microbes go-to-sleep and become inactive, but not death. These organisms may wake-up again after very long periods of time.

Of course, contaminants such as pesticides, herbicides, and air pollutants impact microbe lifespan. Chemicals from urban garden applications are easily carried airborne many miles from their original site. You are impacted by what your neighbors and neighborhood communities do. Be assured that if your neighbor treats his landscape with chemicals, your landscape is receiving residues from these applications. In which case, repeated applications, as mentioned above, are critical.

How do we know when to apply tea?

This depends on why you are applying the tea – if you are applying tea to aid in relieving plant stress, apply weekly until stress or disease conditions improve – then bi-weekly or monthly thereafter.

If compost tea is used to enrich the health of soil and plants, applications can be monthly, bi-weekly, or seasonally, depending on soil health and stability. Compacted, clay and/or soil conditions with poor nutrient content may require more frequent applications – bi-weekly until soil conditions improve.

If you have rich, nutrient-available soil (amended soils rich in humus, with no chemical applications), benefits can be seen in as little as two applications of compost tea per year, such as spring and fall. This is, of course, if you use certified organic fertilizers and organic practices in conjunction with the compost tea application. Certified organic fertilizers provide organic matter that enriches soils and provides a food source for microorganisms.

Can we use too much?

No! Microorganisms manage their own populations based on food sources and cultural conditions, so that the needed quantities and diversity of microbes are maintained. Repeated applications of compost tea offer a greater diversity of beneficial bacteria, fungi, nematodes and protozoa, leading to improved plant vigor and improvements in soil health.

What is the difference between compost and compost tea?

Compost, in simple terms, is a mixture consisting of decayed organic matter and microbial colonies, in a well-balanced ratio of carbon and nitrogen. Compost tea, on the other hand, is a liquid extraction of beneficial microorganisms and soluble nutrients from the compost that is reproduced during the brewing process.

Compost adds the organisms which build soil structure necessary to develop percolation, and allow air passage ways to be opened up as well as the foods to feed these organisms. Compost can be over-applied which means that water and air cannot penetrate the soil, whereas compost tea cannot be over-applied, unless to the point where the soil is water-logged.

Many organisms grow in compost tea, resulting in higher numbers of organisms in tea than in compost. This therefore increases microbial activity in less time than compost. Compost tea is necessary for coverage of plant surface to block pathogen access to leaves, and to make certain predator-prey interactions occur. Compost tea can be applied to leaves, twigs, bark and soil, whereas compost can only be applied to the soil.

Both are very important tools to use.

Is there a difference between the compost we make or buy and compost that is used in compost tea brewers?

YES! Because compost has varied components, it is all different. Compost used as an ingredient in making compost tea is very specialized. This compost is tested at accredited labs so consumers know what the microbial population is in the compost. You should have these lab results available to you and a person who will explain them, if necessary. Always know the composition of the compost that you use in your brewer in order to know the tea’s effectiveness when applied. This is very important!

If we use compost tea, do we still need to use compost or other organic fertilizers or amendments?

Yes. Organic materials are constantly being consumed as food by the microbial population and need to be replaced. A certain percentage of organic matter is necessary in all soils, the level differing with each environment. However, almost all soils are in need of higher organic matter. Adding compost or certified organic fertilizers returns this organic matter to the soil.

Furthermore, the addition of compost or certified organic fertilizers to the soil will increase the biological results of an application of compost tea, because the organisms in the tea will now have additional foods to consume once they hit the soil.

Trees & Shrubs

Organic Packages

Supreme Green

Our highest level of treatment is created to produce the optimal level of soil health and plant vitality for long lasting results that will show for years to come.

• #1 Deep root fertilization – applied bi-annually in April and May
• #2 Compost Tea – applied bi-annually in June and October
• #3 Sea Products – applied bi-annually in June and October
• #4 Mychorrizal Fungi – applied once annually in June

Natural Green

Recommended as an economical, all-inclusive approach to soil and plant health, our all-in-one treatment provides the sustaining quality you expect with a price to fit your budget.

• #5 – Rhizofuel bi-annual application in April and October

Basic Green

Recommended to add vibrancy and health to your garden in two simple treatments twice a year

• #2 Compost Tea – applied bi-annually in June and October
• #3 Sea Products – applied bi-annually in June and October

Garden Bed Mulch

• 2-3″ application of composted steer manure or other in woody based medium such as chips rather than bark or sawdust.
• Suggested bi-annual application in May and November

Treatments

1. Deep Root Fertilization – A slowly soluble, long residual, complete fertilizer with synthesized nitrogen fortified with polyamino acids. Pumped into the root zone through a high pressure system that ensures the spread of nutrients throughout the root system.
2. Compost Tea – Our compost tea is a nutritionally rich, well-balanced organic supplement which adds beneficial microorganisms, use for foliar & soil drench on both trees and shrubs. Brewed in house.
3. Sea Products – Boosts sugar content, use for foliar and soil drench
4. Mychorrizal Fungi
   • Granular – to add during transplant as a rooting stimulant, use for soil agent only
   • Powder Solution – combine with tea injections as a rooting stimulant, use for soil agent only

1. Rhizofuel – All in one bio-stimulant, beneficial bacteria, fungi and mycorrhizal package for healthy, long lasting trees & shrubs.
2. Bioplex – transplanting aid and/or rooting stimulant, use for foliar and soil drench

Lawns

Super Natural Lawn Fertilizer

A superior homogenous blend of fish meal, fish bone meal, feather meal, potassium sulfate, alfalfa meal, calcium sulphate, seaweed extract, mycorrhizae and beneficial soil microbes.

• Controls thatch build up by digesting thatch in the organic debris layer produced by grass roots, stolons, and blades
• Adds life to lawns by providing a broad spectrum of beneficial soil microbes plus three strains of mycorrhizae. This ensures nutrients are made available to the grass roots more effectively and at a steady rate, even under stressful conditions (e.g. drought, low nutrient availability, poor soil structure).

Feeding:

• Early Spring, Late Spring, Summer, and Fall
• One Bag (18 lb.) Covers 2000 sq. ft.
• 100% natural & Organi
• People & pet safe