While sharing fertilization tips with a friend the other day, one thing came up that I had never even heard of: manure tea.
Understandably, I winced at the first mention of this ‘tea’; I was worried he was going to tell me he had been drinking it!
Fortunately, though, my doubts were cleared up, and we had an interesting conversation about something I was only just learning about.
Since I had never heard of it, I wondered how many others wouldn’t have, so I decided to spread the word.
So, goat manure tea—what is it?
Manure tea is a great way of condensing a nutrient-rich fertilizer for your garden, easily made from the manure of many common barnyard animals. Goats, in particular, produce a great manure tea that is very healthy for all your plants. Manure tea is essentially a great fertilizer, easily homemade.
Manure tea is really just a way of making the manure you have more efficiently fertilize your garden.
Manure on its own is great, but making tea allows you to spread it much more evenly around a small flowerbed.
It’s really simple and easy to make, so let’s look further into this.
What is manure tea?
Like me, your first reaction to this phrase might be one of concern.
But, don’t worry—no one is suggesting you drink manure.
The term ‘tea’ is simply an unfortunate one that has come to stick over the years.
Manure tea is, like solid manure itself, a form of fertilizer.
Typically, a homemade one from the manure of a number of commonly kept animals, like horses, cows, chickens or, of course, goats.
Always from the manure of herbivores, though—carnivorous manure contains harmful pathogens.
I’ll get into how you can make it, but manure tea is essentially just a mix of manure and water in a container.
There are no other added ingredients, really.
In order to be able to make it, all you need are a pot, the manure, some water, and something optionally you can use like a tea bag to sift the liquid from the solid.
So, as you can probably imagine, manure tea is typically something made at home, rather than bought from a store.
It’s really simple and easy to make, like I said, and this is most of the reason it’s become so popular.
Let’s look into how to make it.
How can you make manure tea?
The process of making manure tea is really simple.
All you’ll need is the manure, water, and a container.
Even if you don’t have your own livestock for the manure, manure itself is readily available to buy at farming supply stores in your area.
Once you’ve got that, there are two basic ways you can make it.
The first is the simplest.
Take a container of about five gallons.
Fill it about two-thirds of the way with water, and then fill the rest of the volume with manure.
Over the course of a couple of days, let the mixture steep.
Give it a stir once a day.
About an hour after stirring, when everything has settled back down to the bottom, and then pour the liquid into another container.
Voila!
You have manure tea ready to use.
Alternatively, you can make a teabag so you don’t have to pour the liquid off.
Any large enough section of cotton will do—I tend to use bed linen or pillowcases.
Following the same steps as above, after the two days are up, just lift the teabag out and there’s your manure tea.
As you can see, whichever way you go, it’s really easy to make manure tea.
In case you don’t want to make it yourself or haven’t got the time or maybe you can’t be bothered, can you just buy it?
Can you buy manure tea?
There are forms of manure tea available to buy—usually in dry form, in teabags.
However, there’s very little advantage to these teas, and since most accept that manure tea is simply something you make at home, only a few manufacturers offer a pre-made tea.
Even if you don’t have the animals, if you are going to buy something, just buy the manure and make the tea yourself.
It will be fresher, much more nutrient-rich, and you will not pay an exorbitant amount of money for it.
Does manure tea spoil?
It certainly will begin to quickly lose its nutritional content as the days go by.
My advice would be to make it with the intention of using it immediately.
Though it does take a day or two to get it ready, the process of making it is very simple, and you can have enough manure to make it many times.
If you always have some being prepared, then you won’t have to worry about waiting for more.
So, yes, manure tea does spoil, so you should use it with that in mind.
It needs to be used straight away, otherwise, it won’t be as rich in nutrients.
So, as you can see, it’s really easy to prepare and saves you a lot of money on expensive fertilizers.
There is no better fertilizer than what is already provided by the animal kingdom; by making tea, you’re just getting it into a more suitable form.
It’s easy to spread around, seeps into the soil really well, and the mixture can even enhance the availability of nutrients in the fertilizer.
If you have goats and are in need of fertilizer, look no further than this concoction.