A while back a company was making “Barnyard Tea” in actual tea bags. According to sites selling the stuff:
“A Canadian company has devised a method of drying organic manure, preserving the nutrients and removing all odors. Then they package it in standard tea bags. Being made from a blend of cow, chicken, pig and horse manure, it is great for fertilizing house plants, seedlings and transplants.”
The stuff looks way too much like herb tea for my “taste.” I wonder how many boxes were sold and then used as practical jokes? Move over whoopee cushion.
That failed product has not stopped another company, “Authentic Haven Brand” from selling somewhat larger bags of poop that are designed for the same purpose. 
These bags are significantly larger, and much less likely to be confused with the kind intended for human consumption. You can even choose between cow manure, horse manure, and alfafa – the latter intended for roses. It looks like some really high-class sh.. stuff too. According to Annie Havens their tea is “pure manure tea. Harvested, sun dried, Eco-hand packaged from the by-product of Haven raised grass fed livestock only.” She goes on to say
“It’s not the manure I am selling as much as it is the purity of the Manure I’m selling! We’re the real Green Deal here. Do you know what the cattle and horses have been fed, that your manure comes from, chances are No! Have they been medicated, wormed, antibiotics fed to them?”
Okay, so it’s not just high class, it’s really green too.
Manure tea, by the way, is an organic plant food. It’s the organic gardener’s version of Miracle Grow. Organic gardeners (and others) use it in the garden and on container plants. It adds good stuff beyond what you get from chemical fertilizers.
You can also make your own manure tea, of course. This is what I recommend (even though Annie makes a good case for knowing what the animals ate). Real rednecks make their manure tea from scratch. Here are two articles that will teach you to do this:
- Bruce Zimmerman’s recipe uses a pillowcase to make large batches of the stuff.
- Willi Galloway suggests that you just dump the manure in a bucket full of water, and then strain it later.
If you don’t want to get your hands dirty, try Annie’s product.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree if you are taking care of a small Patio Planting or a small Garden Plot USE Anni’e Product for SURE!.
Also call her for Details on Large Scale Usage
First year for me with the “tea”. I make my own, I use a bag of “Balanced blend of manure/compost mix”, and I use the 5 gallon bucket method (1/3 mix and fill with water) Stir everyday, and skim 2 cups per gallon of water, and send it to my plants. My tomato plants are already 4 feet tall, thats taller than they have been in a full season the last 10 years. I haven’t been able to get more than 1 pepper off my pepper plants in the past, I’ve already picked some Big juicy peppers and have 10-15 peppers on the plants currently along with many flowers. This is also the 1st year I tried cucumbers, made a trellis, water them everyday with a bucket of teawater, and I have 4plants over 4ft tall with cukes and flowers all over the plants. I use the tea on every plant and bush in my yard. I change the “tea water”, use it up and clean the bucket out, after about 3weeks, when it starts to get stinky, and start my next batch. It truly works.
I use another product called Pure Manure. The product cannot be beat. My house plants greened up overnight, and my roses bloomed non stop from June to November. Their Teas cannot be beat. They also sell collars for outdoor plants that nourish all season.