Serving the Metro Boston Bioregion and Surrounding Area

Safe for Children, Pets, Bee's & all Living Things!

Place-Based, Purpose-Oriented, Data-Driven

What is Compost Tea?

Compost tea is made through a brewing process that steeps biologically active compost in aerated water for 24 hours, creating an oxygen-rich liquid environment where microbes can proliferate. Compost tea can be described as a highly concentrated liquid compost solution comprised of trillions of self-organizing beneficial microbes, which can be applied as a fertilizer to any plant life, increasing the carbon content of the soil. Increasing soil carbon means expanding the microbial life of the soil. No regenerative process combats global warming as effectively as capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide in the soil. The contribution of microorganisms to soil health through applying compost tea provides lasting enhancements to the carbon cycle post-inoculation. The microbial community's biogeochemical and life cycle processes persistently and exponentially transform the soil to sequester carbon in the soil indefinitely. Further, the biogeochemical functions of microbes found in compost tea have bioremediation capabilities that break down and eliminate toxicity from soil contaminated with chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers. Compost tea is a radical collaboration effort between man and microbe that removes pollution, toxicity, and waste from the system.

What are the results of Compost Tea application?

When compost tea is applied to soil, organic matter increases, microbial life proliferates, soil texture improves, roots go deeper, worms drag organic matter down their holes and make rich castings of nitrogen, nutrient uptake is enhanced, and water retention increases severalfold (creating drought-tolerant insurance). This covers all typical issues related to fertility, pests, weeds, and yield, removing the necessity for chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides since well-nourished plants exhibit greater resistance to pests and diseases.

Why use Compost Tea?

Compost tea is an eco-effective, closed-loop system that converts linear material waste flows of food scraps into valuable material stocks of fertilizer. This closed-loop system is designed to cascade the existing biomass of food scraps typically discarded in landfills and reintegrate them back into the soil where they belong. Cascading existing renewable biomass back into the soil as fertilizer is a nature-based solution that reduces the material footprint of agriculture by decreasing the demand for material extraction of nonrenewable NPK chemical fertilizer. Further, compost tea reduces the ecological footprint of agriculture by reducing the amount of land degradation associated with mining for NPK minerals and the amount of land necessary to absorb the toxic waste runoff of NPK fertilizers by implementing a circular design intervention that designs out pollution and cascades biomass back into the soil. Compost tea decouples value creation from the depletion of the biosphere by replacing the finite material throughput of chemical fertilizers with renewable fertilizers made from already existing food scraps.

Further, compost tea is a safe alternative to the 4 billion tons of toxic chemical fertilizers used globally yearly, which contribute to downstream externalities that drive concerns for human health and environmental injustice. Compost tea breaks the fixes-that-fail systems archetype of continuously adding more chemical fertilizers to soils that have been depleted by chemical fertilizer use in the first place. Chemical fertilizers create a reinforcing feedback loop that exponentially depletes the soil. In contrast, compost tea creates a balancing feedback loop that exponentially regenerates the soil through microbial lifecycle population rates and biogeochemical functions.

Long Term Results

The main benefits of regenerative agriculture are that it builds and improves soil health, enhances water capture and retention, promotes biodiversity, sequesters carbon in the soil, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and increases the health and livelihoods of humans. Regenerative agriculture shows remarkable benefits, with farmers reporting soil organic matter (SOM) levels rising from 1-2% to 5-8% in ten years. Each percent of soil organic matter equals 8.5 tons of carbon sequestered per acre, increasing to 25-60 tons over time through microbial biogeochemical processes. Regenerative agriculture may grow from 108 million to 1 billion acres by 2050, driven by the growth rate of organic agriculture. This could lead to a reduction of 23.2 gigatons of atmospheric CO2 through sequestration and lower emissions. By 2050, regenerative agriculture has the potential to yield a $1.9 trillion financial return on an investment of $57 billion. This demonstrates that we can effectively address the climate crisis while generating profit. For those aware of the severity of the climate crisis, regenerative agriculture offers hope. The idea that we can harness the benefits of intact ecosystems to turn this situation around feels almost miraculous, and what better place to start than your own backyard?

About Us

Statement of Purpose

The IPCC warns that the world will lose its remaining topsoil in 60 years due to industrial agriculture. One-third of topsoil has vanished since 1970, and with over two-thirds of land desertified, billions may soon become soil refugees. Poor land management and rising populations threaten food security for future generations. A global crisis is here, and the human race faces a razor-thin timeline for a radical reorientation of civilization. Unfortunately, few recognize the urgency of this reality. Avoiding environmental catastrophes will require transforming our global economy, society, and way of life without precedent in human history. Scientists warn that climate change drives humanity and other species toward the sixth mass extinction. The last major extinction event occurred 65 million years ago. Species extinction from human activity is accelerating rapidly enough to threaten more than half of all species by the end of this century. Scientists face a colossal challenge as extinction rates surpass the time needed to observe biodiversity loss extinction. The soil is the planet's most incomprehensibly complex and biodiverse habitat, containing more living microorganisms in just one teaspoon than stars in the sky. However, soil microbes are going extinct at a rate faster than scientists can observe. The rate at which topsoil is being depleted is causing immeasurable microbiological biodiversity loss, trophic cascade, and runaway extinction vortices.

Suppose the entirety of the global economy is subsidized by nature, and the soil subsidizes all of nature. In that case, the ability of soil to facilitate the carrying capacity of the global Western imperial capitalist economy, based on the false promise of infinite growth on a finite planet, cannot continue unchecked. Yet, the health and quality of soils are generally overlooked. Reaching an ecological steady-state, focusing on the dynamic relationships between human and earth systems, and allowing nature to regenerate by consuming only as much nature as we can regrow is the only way to reach equilibrium. Bridging this gap is our purpose here at the Permaculturist. Beyond just environmental impact, compost tea is a significant catalyst for social change. At the Permaculturist, we believe a fundamental transformation in global human behavior starts at the hyper-local microscopic scale, not just at the local level. Instead of waiting for top-down political changes that may come too late, we advocate for grassroots initiatives to foster social human behavioral change from the bottom up, starting with the soil.

Our 9 Operating Principles

1. insists on rights of human and nature to coexist. 2. Recognizes Interdependence. 3. Respects the relationship between spirit and matter. 4. Accepts responsibility for consequences of design. 5. Creates safe objects for long-term value. 6. Eliminates the concept of waste. 7. Rely on natural energy flows. 8. Understand the limitation of design. 9. Seek constant improvement by the sharing of knowledge.

Mission Statement

As pioneers in regenerative and circular practices, the Permaculturist mission is to convert linear waste streams from the linear economy into valuable circular resources. Our company aims to demonstrate a new economic approach that enhances soil health, eliminates poverty, decreases inequalities, builds resilience, and captures more atmospheric CO2. We strive to implement environmental management practices that align with the global objective of limiting temperature increases to 1.5°C, which is crucial for the planet’s ability to support 9.5 billion people by 2050.

Aldo Leopold: The Land Ethic

The Land Ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, water, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong if it tends otherwise. The land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land community to plain member or citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.

Book Now