is this compost tea?

@findbeth-1 , now I am not 100% sure of this so we will have to see what others answer but my vote is "Stinky Water" (which to me means you really should repot those plants. The soil has become "tainted" somehow.)

There's many ways to make compost tea but all of them I have heard of require a cycle of aeration they must go thru before the actual nutrients have been acceptably produced which results in the end product compost tea.

Some recipes use an actual aerator, some recipes just rely on time with water and green plant matter with some added nutrition to establish the correct end product. There is actual names for this cycle called aerobic and non-aerobic processing.

But just pouring water over soil does not produce compost tea.

I love this question!

There are actually (broadly) two kinds of Compost Tea - aerated, and non-aerated. Basically the aerated type is more like making compost beer. The non-aerated is basically running your rainwater or spring water through a large trough of compost and collecting the runoff. So, in a way, yes, you are making a sort of tea but it's not compost tea - it's the runoff from a living system. Plants have to exude wastes as well, and generally they do this through respiration, transpiration and root exudates. Water flowing through a pot also cleanses out exchanges of various elements and nutrients. Living plants in a pot are not the same thing as a container of well aged, mature compost with its host of microbial communities. Personally I think there's something to a good smelling compost that makes us 'know', somehow inside, that what we are giving the plants in our care something delicious. Our senses provide us with a lot of good guidance for health.

There are a few schools of thought out there as to how to make the best compost tea for your plants. I was lucky enough to work with some researchers on aerated compost tea (compost beer). Our interest was not just in making the plants happy, but in making the microbial communities in the media happy --- happy enough to suppress certain plant diseases. We already knew that we could use certain compost mixtures to suppress pythium root rot in cucumber for a sustainable, ecological growing system, but that's a lot of compost if you have a large farm. We wondered if we could make compost tea from our suppressive compost and get the same effect by fertigating (using the compost tea as a liquid fertilizer added to water) our plants.

What we found was that the plants really loved the compost tea, but it didn't really encourage a microbial distribution change to combat any pathogen. We did find that the molasses addition did indeed increase microbial activity, but also made the pathogen stronger.

Oddly enough, for the most part I would agree that the anaerobic stuff is pretty nasty, but there are people doing anaerobic composting studies.

there lots of ways to produce compost tea. You can buy/build a really fancy system or just do it at home, such as the manure idea. But, it can be the runoff from a bin. Actual left over tea leaves with water added that's how my gran kept her geraniums alive, inside, over winter!.

My method is from David the Good. I have a large plastic garbage pail with a lid - the lid is really important especially to guard against mosquitoes. i throw in anything I would put in regular compost - kitchen scraps, eggs shells coffee grounds. garden waste, bits of paper used in the house. David now adds epsom salts. I dont as i use a lot of watered down coffee grounds and my diet adds a lot of magnesium. Banana peels are an excellent adddition for the potassium or go get some other organic potassium

https://www.wikihow.com/Add-Potassium-to-an-Organic-garden#:~:text=To%20add%20potassium%20to%20an%20organic%20garden%2C%20cut%20up%20banana,with%20a%20liquid%20seaweed%20spray. OR

https://www.hunker.com/13427188/how-to-make-homemade-potassium-for-plants

. bananas also have magnesium.

I fill the bin with water then just let it sit for at least two weeks. strain it somehow into a watering can. Add more water if you think it is a bit thick then just walk around your garden pouring it over everything. I dont think i would do that with a manure based tea. And please late afternoon or early morning to avoid burning leaves.

Everytime you do any weeding add it to the tea and dont forget to replace any liquid you use. I do this for a couple of months then drain completely, add the sludge either to the compost pile or as a mulch then start over.

Honestly it is the best. if you have comfrey throw that in when you start up. that patch will be ready again in no time.

As for that run off from your plants? dont worry. use it in compost, compost tea or even dilute and throw it on another plant. dont waste anything.

no concerns at all

I believe that people have been using grey water for their gardens for a very long time. davi's compost tea is not grey water. it is compost tea. grey water i believe comes from doing dishes or housecleaning, etc.

I have been using the compost tea for about three years along with regular composting.