Manure Tea

[Dogfish]

Arright yawl.

After serious misery getting plants growing properly due to (apparently) a severe lack of magnesium and sulphur, I stumbled across manure tea and its ilk. I've been brewing and applying for a few days and have seen results already following a dose of Epsom salts on my tomatoes/peppers/pickles.

Now the scientists say nothing's been proven, but knowing sausages and brewing, where good bacteria etc are promoted over bad, the process seems logical. Any thoughts or secret recipes? I'm using well done chicken manure 1/5 with rainwater and an aquarium pump.

[NCPaul]

Can you send a soil sample to have it tested? I've been using composted cow manure with peat moss and a little lime. I've never made a tea.

[Dogfish]

Not that I know of around here. I just worked on symptoms (mobility of the various minerals in the leaves) and the Epsom salts started the plants up within 48 hours.

[yotmon]

I used to collect sheep droppings and place them into an onion netting sack, soak in a barrel of water agitating it daily until it was a strong liquid manure. Then would dilute it to the colour of weak tea and feed it to all my fruit/veg. Really good stuff and didn't cost a penny. At the moment I'm growing a few lettuce and all I'm feeding them is my own watered down urine, they are doing well on it.
Just googled this -
Human urine is one of the fastest-acting, most excellent sources of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and trace elements for plants, delivered in a form that’s perfect for assimilation.
Urine is 95 per cent water, 2.5 per cent of which is urea, and a further 2.5 per cent of which is a mixture of minerals, salts, hormones and enzymes. It is a blood byproduct but despite containing some bodily waste is non-toxic.
In 1975, Dr A. H. Free published his book Urinalysis in Clinical Laboratory Practice, presenting a few of the critical nutrients found in urine, including urea nitrogen, urea, creatinin nitrogen, creatinin, uric acid nitrogen, ammonia nitrogen, amino nitrogen, sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, inorganic sulphate and inorganic phosphate. During a pee, a healthy adult will release 11g nitrogen/urea, 1g phosphorus/super-phosphate and 2.5g potassium. Patrick Makhosi, a soil scientist with Uganda's Kawanda Agricultural Research Organisation, confirms the efficacy of human urine as a fertiliser. He says that applying urine to growing vegetables once every week for at least two months will more than double the yield.
Yotmon.

[Dogfish]

So what you're saying is "Piss on it?"

I read somewhere that one adult male produces enough urine to fertilize enough vegetable matter to feed one adult male. I am, however, squeamish on that front.

[yotmon]

I would dilute it first and if your growing 'greens' ie eating the leaves, then apply it to the roots. Also, don't forget to use the wood ash from your fire, its a 'grate' fertilizer, especially on tomatoes.

Ste.

[captain wassname]

is there any beer involved in the urine?

Jim

[Snags]

This is what I make it works a treat
http://milkwood.net/2010/09/07/biofertilizer-recipe-1/

[Dogfish]

Is the product not incredibly toxic?

[Wunderdave]

toxic to drink maybe but I bet plants love it!

[Dogfish]

So with a live culture like this there aren't severe problems with food poisoning?

[Snags]

I would be more worried about the man made poison you dont see that are sprayed on the food in supermarkets.


I put horse manure on my strawberries in the garden and cream on them in the house.

[yotmon]

Over here in Britain we have a wild plant called Comfrey and it can be used as a green manure by chopping and placing round your plants or used to make 'tea' to use as a liquid manure. Its supposed to contain loads of nutrients to feed your plants as it has a large tap root that goes deep down to obtain most of the trace elements from the soil. I use to use it in trenches dug for growing runner beans and they did well on it. It grows naturally here in the countryside and is free to collect. You can now buy seeds of the plant to grow in your garden, but not sure on Canadian law re' introducing new species.

I posted this link a few months ago on John Seymour's self sufficiency book, he gives some good tips on growing plants and is easy reading.

http://www.eternallyaware.com/uploads/3 ... ciency.pdf


Ste.

[Snags]

Comfrey is everywhere
Root cuttings is a good way of starting it.
Great plant for manure tea
If you plant it make sure you want it, because its hard to get rid off if you dont.

[Dogfish]

I actually dug a pile of it out of the garden under the heading 'weed of no value'. It really is everywhere.