I’m definitely open to trying different things on the farm, especially when it comes to managing the abundance of something. And one thing I always have an abundance of here is poop.

I have yet to figure out how much poop one goat produces, but I know I am thankful ours are out in the pasture all day happily dropping goat berry fertilizer where I don’t have to rake it up. Cleaning the pens is a chore. Finding a good use for all of it turns out to also be a chore. Composting is the first thing that I tried, but a making a mound of poop behind the garden does not qualify as composting. All I got was a proliferation of mesquite bean seeds sprouting and a mound of lush bermuda grass growing over a mound of really great dirt.

This year I tried something new in the garden – Poop Tea. There is a wonderful farming family in my community from and I had the opportunity to visit with them early this spring. Mama grows a nice vegetable garden, and she shared with me her secret to her lush and abundant results… Poop tea! She fills a 50 gallon drum 1/3 full of raked up Barnyard Berries, and then water until it is 2/3 full. As seedlings sprout and transplants get put in the garden, she scoops a little ladle of poop tea and pours it right on at the root zone, and continues this all through the growing season.

I don’t know if it was the poop tea, but I am astonished at the abundance of glorious tomatoes that appeared on my vines this year! Never have I gotten this many this fast – giant, meaty Cherokee Purple that I can barely fit in my hand; huge, heavy clusters of Green Zebra; and another variety that was supposed to be Illini Gold seeds but instead has produced red tennis and baseball sized tomatoes. From twelve plants, I have canned 12 pints and 6 quarts of tomato sauce so far and will probably double that by end of season.