Poo Power: Gentle Fertilisers for Better Soil | Sparking Joy

Discover the gentle power of manure in your garden! In this episode, Sam dives into ruminant manure, vermicompost tea, and worm juice, showing how these natural fertilizers can improve soil health, boost nutrient uptake, and make your plants thrive. Learn practical tips for safe application, the science behind soil-building benefits, and how to make the most of your compost and worm farm.

🌱 What You’ll Discover:

• Why ruminant manure (cow, sheep, alpaca) is safe and weed-free
• How mixed manures and vermicompost improve soil and fruit quality
• Practical tips for liquid feeds, soil drenching, and foliar sprays
• The difference between vermicompost tea and worm juice
• Tools and tricks to track plant health and nutrient density

📚 References & Episodes:

• Help! My Garden Isn’t Thriving – Episode 24
  
  
• Composting! Hot or Not? – Episode 9
  
  
• 2022 Plants journal study on kiwi fruit and manure

⏱ Chapters:
00:00 Introduction & Welcome
01:15 Listener Feedback & Corrections
03:10 Understanding Ruminant Manure
07:25 Research on Manure & Soil Health
13:50 Practical Tips for Using Manure
18:45 Vermicompost Tea vs Worm Juice
23:30 Applying Manure Safely
28:15 Final Thoughts & Listener Engagement

🎧 Connect with me.

Transcript

 

Introduction to Manure and Its Benefits 📍 



 Welcome back to White Strawberries. I'm Sam, your host, and today I'm talking about manure dung poo.

In this episode i'm talking specifically about using Poo, some research that shows how we should use them and how awesome they can be, especially in comparison to

in organic fertilizers, I'm gonna be talking about the importance of mixing poo with something else before putting it on your garden, .

 

Sez the Vet Feedback and Corrections

This episode came about because says the vet, listen to episode 24 and she sent me a voice message. I love voice messages. Please send them to me. And she was gently correcting me in, uh, the use of ruminant poo. I have done a little bit about using animal poo in the garden, throughout episodes, particularly in episode 24, about mastering the garden, and I think it's called Help. My Garden isn't thriving, so you can check that out.

If you want more of a overview of how we can help our gardens. But today we're focusing on poo. 

So I'm gonna jump to that clip soon. You can hear that she's driving. There's a little bit of noise in the background., She is discussing ruminants, not having seeds come out their buts, but um, in way more technical



language.

So join me on this episode about Poo. Let's go.



Understanding Ruminant Manure

You just said that horse and cow poo can sprout a lot. Cow. P doesn't, so any of the Rus are ruminants because , they have the big rumen. Uh, there's no seeds coming out the back end. They're broken down by the bacteria really, really quickly.

So you don't get anything coming out the back end other than undigestible fiber, which is not very much of it at all because the bacteria eat all the fiber as well. So there's really, there's not, there's, there's no seeds. That's why people love. Cow, p and um, sheep pellets for sure. Yeah, you can definitely buy sheep pellets from everywhere and if you're lucky and have a neighbor, you can go and scoop them out from their sheds.

'cause they love people to come in and clean their sheds out. But yeah, so, so cows, any of the ants. So that'll be, cattle, sheep, goats. And then also. Alpacas people really love them because they are, they're still ruminants. They're pseudo ruminants.

They've got three stomach chambers rather than four, but they still, they still do the same thing. They still have a big fermentation chamber in their for gut, and that's where the bacteria break everything down. But behaviorally, they use a communal dung pile. So they literally just , will have a dung pile in a paddock and they all go there.

And it's a cool evolutionary adaption to avoid gut. Parasites, because they're very sensitive to them. So instead of, instead of evolving to build a tolerance against that, they have evolved to, just not spread parasite lave around their feeding area at all. So they just poo in a communal dung pile, which makes it really, really cool.

'cause you don't get like the pasture sick thing going on where it's like high nitrogen here and weedy and then really depleted here. And, um, like you do with other grazing species, especially horses, and you can go out and harvest. It super easily 'cause it's just sitting there in a big pile. You just load the whole thing up.

You don't have to walk around the panic.

So that's inspired me to go and get some, oo, I wanna zoom him out here for a moment and. 

Research on Manure and Soil Health

Ground this whole poo conversation in a bit of actual research because this isn't just folk wisdom or permaculture vibes, even though it fits beautifully with both. There was a peer reviewed field study published in 2022 in the journal plants where agricultural researchers looked at how different types of manure affected kiwi fruit, and importantly, the swir underneath them, they compare dairy manure.

Chicken manure, vermicompost, and different mixes of those, and also a conventional inorganic fertilizer treatment. What they found was really interesting. Manure worked not 'cause of its quick nutrient hit. Okay? So that's what you're gonna get in the inorganic fertilizer is like a really quick nutrient hint, but it worked because it builds living soil.

As the manure broke down, it fed soil organisms. Increased organic carbon, improved soil structure and water holding capacity and made nutrients more available to plants over time. The mixed manes, especially combinations like dairy, manure and vermicompost, performed better than single manure on their own.

Plants had bitter leaf nutrient uptake. Soils were healthier and fruit quality improved, including higher soluble solids, which is closely related to bricks, flavor, and nutrient density. Now, to be really honest, the highest total yield didn't come from purely organic treatments.

It actually came from a combination of inorganic fertilizer plus manure. So this study isn't saying organic is better. If what you think is better is more, but if what you think is better is like a fruit. Or a vegetable that is going to sustain your body and feed your body and help the planet become more holistically healthy and carbon to be in the soil.

If that's better, then yes it is. So you are gonna have to, uh, come up with what you think quote unquote better is. So I actually think the study is always saying organic is better, but that's within my underlying values. This study was showing that for high yield, so like more fruit that can be sold at the supermarket, I guess off the tree, um, they were actually mixing it with in organic fertilizers as well.

What it is saying is that manure based systems shine when it comes to quality and soil health. While inorganic fertilizers tend to drive bulk production, and that's also why tools like refractory meters are so interesting, uh, because they let us see the benefits that don't always show up on the scale.

So the flavor, the density, the plant metabolism, they give us feedback on what's happening inside the plant, not just how big it gets. I think I've talked about. Using your refractory meta a little bit before in previous episodes. It's not something I do as a rule, um, but I would like to, I'm a little bit shy of it.

That's, that's honestly what it is. I'm just a little bit shy. And as we talk, you know, about some of these applications, you can actually test your plants prior and then post, so doing something like adding manure or , a annuity to your garden. So basically poo works when it's used thoughtfully mixed well and seen as part of a living system, not a standalone fix.

The research did not apply. Fresh manure are directly to roots or manure. Treatments in the study were well decomposed. When composted, including the VI compost. And I will link the research in the show notes if you wanna check it out.

Practical Tips for Using Manure

Okay, so how can we use manure on our plants? Uh, so let's talk about one way. One way is with liquid feeds like Manu or VMA compost. These let plants absorb nutrients gently through roots or leaves without overloading the soil. So, what we can do is we can use well composted manure. Cow horse or poultry and like says, the vet said before, using ruminants, uh, I think is a really efficient way.

And actually I'm totally on board with getting alpaca poo. Now don't use it fresh though, even though it doesn't have weed seeds in it. Just don't use it fresh. Raw manure has really high nitrogen in it and it can actually burn plants. Um, and then also if you are using , like horse poo, um, pig poo, swine poo, you need to be careful about the weed seed.

So that's when the hot composting comes into play.



Vering compost tea is made by soaking worm castings and water, sometimes with a little molasses to feed the microbes. It's like a gentle nutrient rich tea, full of beneficial microbes. Worm juice, on the other hand, is a liquid that naturally drains from a worm bin and it can be stronger and hotter and it needs a little bit more dilution before you put it onto plants.

I like to tell my nana because she has a thriving womb. Hi nana. Um, that it needs to look like a weak tea when you are adding foliar spray onto your plants. So we wanna be diluting it. Um, a good starting point is one part composter manure or ver compost to like 10 to 20 parts. Water. Of course, if it's been raining lots in your worm farms outdoors, you're gonna get a less concentrated.

Worm juice. Then you, what if it was undercover and, and that worm juice was only coming from the actual plants that you were putting into the wo bin. So that's why I like to say loose tea. And if you are using it as a folly spray, , you can steep it for about 24 to 48 hours and then strain out the solids so you can actually spray it.

Another idea is a soil drench. So you can pour around the base of your tree. I don't know if this is sort of like knowledge for everyone, but your tree doesn't like the roots at the very bottom of the tree underneath the trunk are not feeding the feeder root. Typically are about where the branches end.

So we call it the drip line of a tree. And so that's where you wanna be applying your soil drench. Um, and this is also where I recommend like growing Comfy. Is actually at the edges of the drip line because then when you chop and drop it, that's where the feeder roots are.

However, it's a little bit different for different trees like New Zealand. Alberto and native trees are notorious for having really wide roots that actually expand further than the drip lines. And if of course, if you are in like a, a food forest type environment or in your annual garden bed,

you'll be doing a soil drench and I guess foliar spray, , sort of all at the same time. I would start really weak with the tea, uh, or the foliar spray, soil spray, and then watch leaves for yellowing or browning as I've said before, high nitrogen can be quite burning, and that's why we use such a high ratio of carbon to nitrogen in compost piles and things like that.

research backs this up. A 2011 study from Thailand tested swine pig manure extract as a foliar and soil treatment on cassava and plants that got both applications had better nutrient uptake and growth, and they performed on par with conventional fertilizer. Um, and that was at. Cas Art University. I know I'm probably not saying that right,

the takeaway for home gardeners. A poo based or worm based tea should be dilute like weak tea to be safe and effective. They're a gentle supplement, but the real magic still comes from building healthy soil with compost mules and careful care tools like a refactor meter can help you see. What improvements you're making and also of course the flavor of your fruit and vegetables,, is gonna be another indicator of whether or not what you're doing is helping.

Final Thoughts and Listener Engagement

So that's me. I have a friend up the road with alpacas and I'm so glad, says, shared about the communal P pile. That is brilliant. Sorry to my pony friend. I will not be seeing you anytime soon. I'm going to go and see my alpaca friend. So what can you do with this information? Chill out about ruminant weed seeds.

Sorry, I misled you. My fear got in front of my research. Thank you. Says the vet for clarifying. Uh, you can make a manure foliage, tea. You can add some thin layers or mix the kitchen scraps. For your worm farm in with some manure as well. For my worm farms, I actually like to soak some manure and then put that on as a layer in my worm farms worms, love it.

Um, don't make it too thick because it can be harder for worms to get in and out of it and sort of in like breathe. You want it to be , in thin layers. You can also check out the hot compost episode if you want to use pony or non ruminant poo. And that's in episode nine. I also did an episode about how I use chickens in my garden beds, um, and I rotate them in the chicken tractor episode.

So check those out if you're interested. Hey, thank you for your feedback. I love it. . I have actually made a few show note changes based on local wisdom and your feedback, and I have some ideas and conversations in the pipeline based on what you wanna hear about.

  📍  save being at an in-person garden event. This is the best way I know to connect. So thank you so much for your messages. Please send me questions, corrections, your thoughts. This is my favorite thing.

DM me on Insta or Facebook or wherever you're listening to this podcast. If you like this episode, please, please, please screenshot it and share it with a friend. It's actually really hard to let people know that a podcast exists without spending a bunch of time online, and that's not really my vibe.

Let's make living with nature easy again. And until next time, may, your alpaca poo pie will be high, and your story is white.