I've been making tea out of chicken coop sweepings for 5 years and it's great - sometimes the only fertilizer the veg garden needs. I don't worry too much about dilution. I dump one wheelbarrow into a 55 gal drum and fill with water, let it age a couple of weeks and use for months, refilling with water until you clean the coop again!

By the way, our coop bedding is either straw or white pine shavings - I just add lime to the soil to balance pH.

I've also heard that nettle tea is supposed to be good.

Tomorrow morning I hope to get a couple of 5 gallon buckets of poo from the chicken coop and start some tea.

Have arthritis in my shoulders, neck, back, hip and knee plus my husband is not available at all times so gotta keep my chores in the garden as small as possible when it involves lifting.

I have some good looking tomatoes this year; been enjoying them for the last 3 weeks; I graze on the cherry tomatoes while I am working in that area. Was pleasantly surprised today after I trimmed leaves off the Guernsey Island tomatoes and found 3 ripe ones. This is my first year to grow them...neat looking tomato. Black Prince is loaded with tomatoes; great tasting. We are suppose to hit the 100's by Friday, guess that will shut down pollen production.

No nettles but just about every other weed God put on this Earth resides on this one acre plot!

Thanks!

Dr. Elaine Ingham has done much research on making and using compost teas, teas can be made using animal manures as well, and strongly suggests making Aerated Compost Tea and not simply steeping the compost, or manure, in water. This link might be of some help.

Here is a link that might be useful: Making Compost/manure Tea

Kimmsr, I had already read on your link and I would make Aerated Compost Tea if I could find the air stone...has not surfaced since our move last year. :( I tried to label all boxes and where they were to go BUT....

I have to cut back the Hawaiian Orange Cherry tomatoes or we will not be able to harvest any. Will try using the leaves in a tea.

If you don't aerate the tea I assume that it just will make something bad instead of good? I have never made it.

I did aerate in the past and also didn't; did not see much difference in the smell (manure smells like manure!). Also used my air stone to root pomegranates...they didn't root the whole month the air stone was going. When I took it off and was getting ready to trash the project I noticed it suddenly had lil roots showing...in a few days all the cuttings had roots...go figure.

Good for rooting then, thanks, that is good to know. I normally can't root things.

Aerating compost tea has little to do with how it smells but does aid in keeping potential disease pathogens form growing in your compost or manure tea. I can recall that back in the 1960's when I started gardening organically people thought that if a material did not smell offensive it was not organic and should not be used by an "organic" gardener. Since then many of us have learned that disease pathogens can grow in anaerobic conditions which create the most stinky odors so we try not to allow that to happen.

Quote: "Kimmsr, I had already read on your link and I would make Aerated Compost Tea if I could find the air stone...has not surfaced since our move last year."

Airstones are not recommended any longer. The bigger bubbles are considered the better way to go.

Just weigh down the open ends of the air tubes and have at it.

so we are talking like a big pump for a large fish tank? It seems like so much work, when just having a bin is much easier. But, if you need it fast, I guess tea takes just two weeks? Maybe on craigs someone sells off their pumps when the fish died?

rdak, I will try that WHEN I find the frapping pump! I know it is the shop BUT I'm almost afraid to go in there. DH does not believe in putting things away; it does not take long before there is a small path which gets smaller and smaller...last Winter I went out one day to the garage for something and fell because there is no light and the path was covered but I could not tell. DH does not like it when I clean the shop and garage! But to quote my doctor "at my age, I don't need to be falling!"