The Gentle Art of Making Tea

The quest is to grow luscious, juicy, yummy fruit and veg. The journey is to find out what works, and keep doing it. It's probably cheaper to buy our fruit and veg, but where's the fun in that? So along the way I have developed my very own tea ceremony. It's a very special tea and a very sacred ritual.

Mugrat's Marvellous Manure Mixture

You will need

• chickens - a necessary ingredient to produce chicken poo

• bucket and spade - to collect said poo

• tea bag - large mesh bag

• teapot - large rubbish bin

• tea strainer - large mesh bag in a large garden pot

• jug - a relic from the failed 'we will drink filtered rainwater' era

• recycled soda water bottles

• water spikes - proved to be ineffective with unfiltered chicken poo

• air flow facilitator (patent pending) - aka hole puncher, aka corn on the cob stick

• soap, soap and more soap

Method

1. Wait for chooks to poo.

2. Collect poo using bucket and spade.

3. Transfer poo into tea bag and allow time to mature.

4. Put tea bag into teapot and brew for a few weeks.

5. Don surgical strength gloves, try not to breathe.

6. Pour tea through strainer to minimise chunky bits.

7. Half fill bottles with liquified poo and top up with water.

8. Up end bottle into veggie patch (water spike down) and clear air hole with air flow facilitator (patent pending).

9. Discard gloves and scrub hands and arms with soap, to be sure, to be sure.

This ceremony takes me the best part of the morning. The back complains, the nose complains but I persevere in the hope that I am actually improving the richness of the soil in an environmentally friendly way. I follow the tenets of reduce, recycle, reuse, refuse.......Namaste!

Stop Press.... We have 3 babies in our messy nest!