Have you ever completed a workout and then encountered an enthusiastic body-builder encouraging you to buy a super-shake? They try to hard to convince you that your body needs that shake to fuel your workout and keep you beautiful. Well, I’m here as your gardener friend to tell you that your plants need a super-shake, too!!
Super-shakes are great for when your plants need an extra-nutritional boost, and when they need it quickly. I have gleaned an all-natural just-for-plants super-shake recipe.
Manure Smoother
I couldn’t get “smoothie” to rhyme so we made do. So, how do you make this super-shake? The proportions might be flexible but I have heard gardening experts recommend a 1 part manure to 4 parts water ratio.
You simply round up some good farm animal manure, shovel some into a 5 gallon bucket, add water and stir. Now, a very important note: Do not use horse manure or cow manure without checking one detail! Horse manure (and I’m guessing cow, too) can contain a broad-leaf killer which could kill your plants. Broad-leaf pesticide is often used on hay crops to keep the weeds down out of the hay/grass. That same chemical can pass through your horse and into your garden if you’re not careful. And, unless you are growing grasses, this can prove fatal for the plants.
So, check your horse or cow manure sources before you go there. I recommend using well-aged chicken manure (I think a month or two will more than suffice) or any stage rabbit manure.
When to Use the Tea
Use the manure tea when you are planting new plants from the store or transplanting old ones. The water in the tea will hydrate the roots and carry the manure’s nutrients right down through the soil. This is a perfect mixture to relieve the shock of moving a plant, as well as a good boost for root development.
Just a random story: I mixed up some chicken manure tea the other day while transplanting roses. Life got busy, I didn’t use it all and I left a little sitting in the bucket. A few days later, I made a discovery. Plants are not the only living things to like manure tea! There were multiple black beetles floating in the bucket, all still kicking their legs in the tea. I fished them out with a stick and then looked their picture up. Sure enough… They were dung beetles!
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