How to Make Organic Manure Tea

About Organic Manure Tea

Manure is a nutrient and mineral-rich fertilizer, that is highly valued by home gardeners. This solid fertilizer, mixed into the garden soil, can feed your plants for weeks. You can provide a quick boost to both indoor and outdoor plants, by feeding them liquid Manure Tea. In liquid form, the many valuable nutrients in organic manure tea are available for immediate uptake by the roots of your plants.

Like compost tea, making manure tea is easy. However, it’s a little messier. And it has an odor to it. This odor diminishes over time.

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

Did You Know? You can use manure tea on your indoor houseplants, too. The trouble is, most people don’t want to catch a whiff of it inside of their homes.

How to Make Manure Tea

Select a large container, from a 5-gallon bucket to a 55-gallon drum. Fill the container loosely with manure. Fill the container with water. Stir the mixture every day, a couple of times a day, if you can. Aeration is important to the process. After a week, it is ready for use.

Drain off the liquid tea. Then, use a strainer to remove solid particles. If you are going to use the tea in a sprayer for foliar feeding, strain the liquid through a cheesecloth, to remove small particles that can clog the sprayer.

Pure manure tea is too strong for your plants. The nitrogen content can be so high, that it burns the plants. Before applying the tea to your plants, mix 10 parts of water with one part of undiluted tea. This 10:1 ratio dilutes nutrients in the tea, to levels that are safe for your plants.

The leftover solid material can be spread on your garden, put into a composter, or onto the compost pile for later use.

Important Note: The liquid nutrients in manure tea is used immediately by your plants. But, because it is in liquid form, it will wash out of your soil quickly. Frequent applications are recommended.