Let's talking about using urine as fertilizer!

[Fujiko]

So I have this book my SIL recommended to me, it's called Solviva by Anna Edey. It is such an inspirational book. In the book she talks about her solar house and her green house, and how she maintained her gardens in both buildings. She is big on not using any chemicals in her gardens, 100% organic, using natural means, etc.

One big concept in the book is using human urine as fertilizer. When you think about it, she's on to something. Human urine is a fantastic source of nitrogen (plus it has smaller quantities of phosphorus and potassium), is completely free, is naturally sterile (under normal conditions), and by "disposing" of urine in your garden, you are diverting it (plus X number of gallons of water) from sewage.

Has anybody done this? I would like to know more about it. In the book she says that to achieve better NPK ratios, one should mix with wood ash. Does anyone know how to do this (ratios, etc)?

To think, we are flushing natural fertilizer down the toilet!

I know it might seem too extreme for some people, but if the plants are watered correctly, the urine should never touch the vegetative parts (just the roots), and I'd rather have my own urine on my plants than a chemical fertilizer.

(PS I hyperlinked the amazon.com link to the book above, but the solviva website is simply solviva.com)

[mattemma04]

I have not,but know some US cities use human waste to fertilize crops.

[Owen'nZoe]

I've not used it myself, but the people I know who do put it on their compost pile, not directly into the garden.

[lunarlady]

I've heard the problem with using urine is nitrogen burn on the plants. In other words, it is too strong. So you have to dilute it. Or add it to the compost pile so that it breaks down and is diluted by the other compounds in the pile. The other issue is that as it breaks down the urea converts to ammonia, which is a rather unpleasent smell. But these issues can be overcome, if you really want to do it.

[LaughingHyena]

I've heard it's good for getting your compost going but not to put it directly on the plant. I think it was 1 part urine to 10 parts water.

This was in the news recently
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/c...re/8357134.stm
Sounds like they should save a lot of water

[myk]

no, and i would not. not directly anyway. if someone was to pee on my compost pile i'd happily pretend i don't know about it though

[xekomaya]

I read a blog post recently about a guy who did a humanure experiment. He kept the pee separate, used a jug and emptied it weekly on the flower bed and said they did great that year. I think in general, urine is too high in salts to use as your regular fertilizer, but that doesn't meant I think it should be flushed into our drinking water either.

I do dump the baby potty into the compost all the time. We have a hot pile going - hard to say if it really does much but at least it isn't going into the water. If we weren't living in a rental right now I might be more adventurous.

[quelindo]

Crunchy Chicken has talked about this on her blog. I did pour diluted urine on my garden once or twice last summer, but not enough to know if it did any good. Our houses are SO close together, and my son is four and has a big mouth, so I'm a bit worried about doing it regularly.