Have you ever heard of "Manure Tea?" What you do is fill a big bucket with fresh animal manure, cover it all with water and let it "steep" for at least a month. The bucket you see in the picture here is left from last year. I filled it with horse "apples" and water and it has been sitting in the greenhouse for months!
It is not to drink (although our dog might beg to differ on that point.... ewww...) What you do is ladle out the liquid, dilute it with water in a watering can and use it to fertilize your garden vegetables. It's very effective, and truly, it doesn't smell particularly bad.
However, there is another kind of "tea", a green manure tea that smells awful. It is made with comfrey leaves. Here is the comfrey, just starting to grow:
When it gets big, I will stuff a lot of the leaves into a bucket, fill it with water, put a cover on it and leave it out in the sun for at least a month, and then use it the same way as the animal manure tea. This is fabulous for potatoes, but very very good for other plants as well.
Comfrey also makes a wonderful salve. I make salve most years. Here is what I posted about it last year. I combine the comfrey with plantain leaves.
So many things are coming up now. I will post more pictures soon.
mmm...manure tea, lol. I figure by the time we are done cleaning up the barn yard this year we will most likely have a dump truck full of horse and cow manure. The garden and compost pile is going to love it!!
ReplyDeleteI have made manure tea too. It is great stuff. You are so green girl. The real kind of green.
ReplyDeleteSay did you get the book by Michael Bunker? Surviving off off grid.
I am reading it now. Some of it is a bit boring but its really eye opening.
:) I want to read that book, and it is on my Amazon.com wish list! The description says it is not a how-to. But I am hoping there is some of that in there also. Is there?
ReplyDeleteIsn't that the same thing as Compost Tea?
ReplyDeleteIt's the same idea, just different ingredients. :)
ReplyDelete