Once you have decided to use human urine
as fertilizer, what next? Here are
some easy to
follow instructions.
For use on
lawns, trees and bushes, and for the compost
pile,
urine only needs to be diluted one part to five
parts water. I commonly only dilute it 1 to 1,
and haven't seen any problems with this, as long
as I spread it out.
For gardens,
one part to eight parts water is minimum, and
diluting it one part to fifteen parts is better,
especially if it is to be applied over bare
ground as opposed to mulch. I always
add in trace minerals, because they are so
needed by the garden, and by our bodies!
Human urine is almost
perfectly sterile, unless the person it came
from has a urinary tract infection. Even though
fresh urine is sterile, I don’t apply it on
crops that will be harvested in a couple of
weeks. When using urine as fertilizer, apply it
to the soil around the plant. It is best not to
apply it to the plant leaves.
But what about those plants like radishes, carrots or sweet potatoes that are impossible to fertilize without getting urine on the plant? No problem. First, I dilute my urine solution down a little further. Then as soon as I have finished applying the urine, I use water to rinse it off the leaves. This keeps the urine from burning the plant. Of course, I always wash my produce before eating it.
I live in Georgia where the ground doesn’t
usually freeze, so applying urine in the winter
isn’t a problem. If the ground where you live is
frozen or there is snow on the ground, then it
is really up to your situation, and whether
urine applications will be noticeable, and thus,
a potential for embarrassment. Or you may choose
to store it.
It is certainly more convenient to store your
urine in an air tight container instead of
having to apply it every day. Storing urine for
a few weeks or longer gives microbes time to
break it down a little. They use up most of the
nitrogen in the process, leaving an N-P-K ratio
of about 1-1-1. This is actually a great ratio
for a fertilizer.
Apply urine within 24 hours of collection. After
24 hours, urine begins to break down, and the
amount of ammonia increases. This can be too
strong for plants, plus the ammonia is what causes
urine to STINK.
Fresh urine doesn’t
have much of an odor.
Not only is urine high in nitrogen, it is
also high in salts. Too much salt kills the
microbes in the soil. The way I overcome this is
to apply humic
acid to my garden at the beginning and end
of the gardening season. Not only does this
break down salts so that they don’t build up in
the soil, but humic acids help to increase
microbial life in the soil, which in turn builds
valuable humus.
Good news! Urine contaminated with a virus (like
Hepatitis, HIV, or the Flu) isn’t a problem in
the garden. A virus needs a host to survive, and
it can’t live more than a couple of days without
one.
Although urine has a good amount of nitrogen, applying urine as fertilizer is not enough, as it is lacking in both macro and trace minerals. To supplement your "liquid nitrogen", you need a good source of potassium. Green sand, kelp meal, granite meal and wood ash are all good sources of potassium.
They say that the average acre of soil has 4,000 pounds of unavailable phosphorus. I apply MyCorrPlus in the spring and fall. This releases the phosphorus I need. It also provides a wonderful environment for earthworms.
To fill in this gaps in trace minerals, I turn to the ocean. Kelp and ocean fish are both excellent. However the most complete and least expensive trace mineral package I know of is concentrated ocean water. An 8 ounce bottle is enough for the average sized back yard garden for a full year. Happy gardening
(Return from Urine as Fertilizer to Organic Vegetable Garden)
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