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Organic Gardening

Compost/manure combo tea?

17 years ago

I purchased some compost/manure combo yesterday, and am wondering two things. First, is the difference between actually using it in the ground or around the plants and making it into tea, the difference between providing actual nutrients vs. feeding the "microherd"? Or, in tea, do the nutrients actually leach into the water and you are "fertilizing" when you water with the tea?

I made some tea with some of this stuff 24 hours ago and I suddenly got paranoid that this stuff will not be good for the plants. I have not used any of it yet and won't until I get the all clear (or not) from you all.

I haven't seen anything here yet about this particular formulation of stuff you can buy.

thanks for the help.

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Comments (2)

dchall_san_antonio
17 years ago
If it's 24 hours old without aeration, it's pretty dead tea. What you are shooting for in AERATED COMPOST TEA is to dislodge the beneficial microbes from compost and provide an aerated and well fed environment for them to multiply in numbers. Hopefully you can get up to a factor of 1,000 from the original count in the compost to the finished tea.

Don't use unfinished compost or manure in tea. If you do then you are possibly multiplying pathogenic microbes along with the beneficial. All you need to do is start spraying e.coli on your garden and then you have a mess.

Finished compost smells fantastic. If yours does not smell like a forest floor after a rainstorm, then it needs to continue composting. If it smells foul, sour, dank, rank, moldy, musty, yeasty, or otherwise rotten, then continue to compost it until it smells great.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deuley's Own Little Texas Tea Maker
finnbiker
Original Author
17 years ago
I am assuming the compost/manure is well finished, as it is a commercial prep. It smelled fine. I wasn't sure if the presence of the manure in the mixture would change anything as far as the instructions go. I think I will just reserve the rest of the bag to spread in my garden when the season is over. I will go out now and put the probably-dead tea on my iris bed and see what happens.
It was getting a foam on it shortly after I mixed it up-- I wonder if it would work if I just mixed it by hand and brewed it for an hour or two.
Thanks for the link and good advice.
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Well technically it's not quite that easy. I mention this because some prefer to get really technical. First because a 5 gallon bucket doesn't really hold 5 gallons of liquid. Second because dry measurements aren't the same as liquid measurements, they are less. Dry gallon is only 0.86 of a wet gallon. You want to end up with a 2:1 dilution maximum and 4:1 would be better. So for every 4 cups water you'd add approx. 3/4 c manure, etc. In real life I don't think most worry about that much accuracy. I know I don't. Instead you can dump approx. 2-4 cups of manure into the bucket and fill it with water. Let it steep and settle. Then before applying it one often reads guidelines like " dilute it to the color of weak iced tea". Works for me. So it all depends on how accurate you want to be. :) Dave
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If you Google 'how to make manure tea' you'll find that most all the articles recommend using only well aged manure - anywhere from 6 months to a year - never fresh, when making tea with it. And using it only as a root drench, never as a foliar spray. It also is usually diluted further before application. There is a FAQ here about it and the discussion linked below is from over on the Organic Gardening forum where the subject of manure tea is often discussed. Hope it is of help. You might also want to do some reading here on the safety issues associated with using manure in the home garden. Many discussions that a search using 'manure' will pull up for you and a couple of them are just a bit further down the front page here. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: Manure tea issues discussion....
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What was you compost made of? Compost consisting of animal manures might have the disease pathogens that cause E-Coli, Listeria, Salmonella, and several others and if that undigested compost is used to make compost tea those disease pathogens can be present. All of the produce from your garden will need to be washed very well before using, especially if they are to be eaten raw.
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Nice post. I wanted to point out however that bacterial brews actually only need 24 hrs or less and fungal brews need around 48 hrs. Also if you are using a bag for your casting/compost adding a stone inside the bag will help dislodge fungal spores. A quick note on worm bins. in general if you exclude animal byproduct you will have much higher microbial diversity and much higher number of biodegraders in your castings. Also by adding small amounts of compost and minerals such as greensand and/or rock dust you can help further feed and breed your microbial community. Also there are quite a few ingredients you can add to your teas to enhance them. Some enhance the microbial content by adding food, others enhance the micro-nutrients in your tea, while will do both. The teas that we create have at the very least all of these ingredients. Worm Castings, Alaskan Forest Humus, Organic Compost, Hydrolyzed Fish, Sea 90, Micronized Kelp, Micronized Humic Acid, Demerara Sugar, Azomite, Alfalfa Meal, Kelp Meal, Humates, Fish Bone Meal, Fish Meal, Feather Meal, Soybean Meal, Cameline Meal, Fossilized Kelp, Rock Phosphate, Langbenite, Volcanic Ash, Green Sand, Sulfate of Potash. While I'm not suggesting you need all of these ingredient I am suggesting that you experiment. Have some fun, keep notes, and learn.
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