Photo courtesy of Isabelle Ann at Flickr.com.
Most of us have heard about compost tea, but how about manure tea? If you have access to herbivore manure — from goats, sheep, cows, and horses, for example — you can process it into a nutritious manure tea for your plants much quicker than you can compost it. (DO NOT use manure from meat-eating animals!).
Pack the manure into a porous bag, like the ones they sell onions and oranges in, then hang it over a large, water-filled garbage can. Dunk the “tea-bag” regularly over a three week period, and you’ll end up with a garbage can full of nutritious elixir that your plants will love. For best results, dilute it with water somewhat to make it even gentler, especially when you use it on seedlings. For a more detailed recipe for manure tea, click here.
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Great tip, but be sure the animal you obtain the manure from hasn’t been grazing on grass that has been treated with any kind of pesticides. It can be passed into the digestive system & when used on your garden can do alot of damage or kill plants. I learned this the “hard way” after making a manure tea from my neighbors cows that had recently been turned out on pasture that was treated non-organically.