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Testing Soil Amendments: Manure Tea vs Compost

by Mike Lieberman on August 2, 2010 · 3 comments

Testing Soil Amendments

Now that I’ve remembered to amend the soil in my container garden, I’m going to be running a side-by-side test of soil amendments.

Here is the test that I’m going to run. I have two cucumber containers on my balcony garden. In one of them, I have amended the soil with straight compost. The other container I have watered with the cow manure tea that I brewed up.

The plant that I used the cow manure tea already started out slightly smaller than the other, but I want to test and see if the manure tea help to promote better growth.

I’ll monitor progress and report back in a few weeks. Which do you think will yield better results?


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  • Susan

    Can't wait for the results! I am betting on the tea! Is the compost homemade or purchased?

  • Mike Lieberman

    The compost is from the LA Bureau of Sanitation.

  • Shedevilsister

    It would be interesting to have a 3rd plant and use 1/2 compost plus 1/2 tea. Just like humans, maybe it needs a little bit of both to be great…just a thought :) Actually, urine has a lot of nitrogen in it…really, I'm not kidding. It's a good natural source to add to a compost. That is my husband's chore for the day!