Manure Tea, A Liquid Organic Fertilizer

About Liquid Organic Manure Tea

Experienced gardeners know and appreciate the immense value of manure in their gardens. Ditto with compost, a rich, organic fertilizer. Most gardeners also appreciate the value of Compost tea to both indoor and outdoor plants. Not as many of us know about or use rich, organic manure tea.

Like Compost tea, manure tea is easy to make. Of course, it’s a little messier and has an odor to it.

Note: Manure in both solid and liquid form has an odor to it. The odor will fade over time. However, the odor keeps some people from using it as a liquid fertilizer indoors.

Manure Tea is great for foliar feeding your plants. Sprinkle or spray diluted manure tea on the plant leaves. The fertilizer is absorbed into the leaves. More on foliar feeding plants.

When Making Manure Tea, Not All Manures are Created Equal!

To suggest that all manures are the same is to be naive. The diet of every animal varies, especially between vegetarians and carnivores. Most of the manures which you have regular access to are vegetarian. But even within this group, diets are different, and the digestion process functions differently. Dietary changes, especially seasonal, also affect the final “finished product”.

As an example of the differences, horses eat lots of field grasses and weeds. They do not pulverize their food as they eat it, and their digestive tract allows many weed seeds to pass through unaffected. As a result, a horse excretes many of those seeds. People who use horse manure, experience far more weeds in their gardens.

Cows eat lots of field grasses and weeds, too. They chew and grind their food far more thoroughly, and their digestive system processes the food far more efficiently. The “end” product contains far fewer weed seeds. On the other hand, cow manure is much “wetter”, making it harder to handle.