Seed Soak Tea

BY NICO HILL

Want a nice and easy way to give your favorite plants a quick fix of organic loveliness? Look no further than a seed soak tea: taking all the vim and vigor from your young sprouts and capturing it for your own organic plant booster.

Farming organically offers growers a myriad of options to tweak their nutrient regime, enabling a unique and tailored package that ends up (probably after a fair bit of trial and error) perfect for your specific plants

Everyone loves to tinker about in their garden. If you are anything like me, it is almost impossible to stop yourself from adding something into the mix or tweaking something. It’s a bit like trying to avoid the temptation of opening pandora’s box and probably half the reason why additive sales are so high in the industry. Farming organically offers growers a myriad of options to tweak their nutrient regime, enabling a unique and tailored package that ends up (probably after a fair bit of trial and error) perfect for your specific plants. Seed soak teas are one-such option to get a quick organic boost for your little green friends.

What’s it all about then?

In the beginning, seedlings are packed with energy and nutrition to ensure a successful start. We aim is to capture all that spritely energy and make use of it to enhance another, more mature, plant’s production.

You can follow the same process and use distinctly different species of seeds to capture various properties. Examples of commonly used seeds are alfalfa, barley, wheatgrass or rye. Each seed is rich in its own unique array of enzymes, proteins, amino acids and other such compounds that can provide a boost to a growing plant. Wheatgrass is already well-known in juicing bars and health club circles for its nutritionally-dense and amino-rich properties, as well as for having an almost complete vitamin B spectrum. Unsurprisingly, these things are perfect for plants as well, so let’s have a look at how we can make that possible.

Sprout that seed

You will need:

• Your chosen seeds.

• Some water (Ideally, RO).

• A container.

• Colander or sieve.

• Optional germination aids (soluble kelp).

First, you need to choose and measure your seeds and get them to sprout. Once you have selected your seeds, grab a container big enough to put them in. Eighty to a hundred grams of seed is usually a good starting point to make a decent-sized batch of tea. Soak the seeds in the container full of water overnight, or for about 12 hours. Typically, the seeds will almost double their weight during this period from all the water uptake. They should drop to the bottom of the container, and any remaining husk can be scooped from the surface.

After the soaking period, they need to be drained and rinsed in a colander or sieve, then placed in a suitable container (jar, cloth pot, sprouting tray) and left to sprout. Creating a thick layer of seeds will help keep them moist, but you do need to rinse them at least twice a day to make sure they don’t dry out too much. Other than that, it is now just a waiting game. After roughly three days (depending on seed type), little white sprouts will have grown a centimeter or so from all of your seeds and the next phase can begin.

Each seed is rich in its own unique array of enzymes, proteins, amino acids and other such compounds that can provide a boost to a growing plant

Unfortunately, the time has now come for you to kill all of these young little sprouts. Before doing that, you need to decide if you are applying the tea immediately, or whether you want to go for a storable fermented option. The latter does involve a bit more effort, but the extra fermentation process aids with compounds becoming more plant available and also provides the welcome opportunity of a storable concentrate.

If using immediately

The rest of the process from here is pretty simple. All you need is a standard kitchen blender. Fill it up with the sprouts, add a bit of water, and blend evenly. Once you have something resembling a dodgy-looking milkshake, you are done. All that is left is to avoid any urges of drinking the concoction before adding it to 10-20 liters of water and pouring it over your eager plants.

Unfortunately, the time has now come for you to kill all of these young little sprouts. Before doing that, you need to decide if you are applying the tea immediately, or whether you want to go for a storable fermented option

If making a storable option

Let’s face it, most of us don’t have the time to do this every week, so being able to make a fermented storable concentrate is likely to be a welcome option for most organic gardeners’ toolboxes. From this point onwards, you are mostly following the standard fermentation process used in Korean Natural Farming (check out some of the past issues on making ferments for more details).

You will need:

• An equal weight of natural brown sugar (plus a bit more) to the seedlings.

• A large enough container (Ideally a mason jar).

• Optional LAB.

• A sieve.

Rather than blend the seedlings, at this point, you need to roughly chop them all up, then weigh out an equal weight of sugar and mix it together. If you are cool enough to have made your own LAB, then you can combine an appropriate amount for the volume at this point (1ml per liter).

Once all mixed evenly, pack it into your mason jar and put a 2cm layer of sugar on the top like a cap. Then, use some cloth to cover the top so the mixture can breathe. Leave in a warm area for seven days.

After about a week, you will be left with a syrup-like juice that you need to separate from the solid material with your trusty sieve. Once separated, it can be transferred to a breathable container for storing and is usually good to keep for six months.

Let’s face it, most of us don’t have the time to do this every week, so being able to make a fermented storable concentrate is likely to be a welcome option for most organic gardeners’ toolboxes.

Get using it

You are ready to rock! Although you may feel a tad guilty about sacrificing the souls of young seedlings’ lives for mere selfish greed, it really can provide a beneficial boost to your plants and is fun to make. It barely costs anything and is extremely rewarding, so seriously, go get sprouting some seeds now!

BIO

Nico Hill has been a keen gardener for many moons. Bitten by the hydroponic bug back in 1998, and hasn’t looked back since! After many years as a hobby, Nico’s career in Hydroponics had its start working for Aquaculture in Sheffield, the UK’s largest and most forward-thinking grow shops of the time. He was then hired by Hydromag, responsible for the hydroponic content. From there, he has worked with CANNA, as editor of CANNAtalk, author of the research articles, and delivering seminars throughout the UK to grow shops on the finer details of cultivating in a hydroponic environment.