Fertilizing with urine

[AverageDude]

This is a super interesting thread on the topic:

http://www.permies.com/t/4876/organic/Urine-fertilizer

Looks safe, and you can't beat free nitrogen. Anyone using urine as fertilizer? Might have to try this out on a small non-food producing area to see if it works as well as they claim.

[fred.greek]

The folks at Journey to Forever have urine/humanure info, and much more: http://journeytoforever.org/compost_humanure.html

[rogersorders]

I did it a couple of times on my lawn. I would put it in a liquid fertilizer sprayer and spray it on the grass. I didn’t do it very often and I didn’t have a control area to see if there was a difference, but it definitely didn’t hurt and I couldn’t smell it.

[desertmarine]

I did it a couple of times on my lawn. I would put it in a liquid fertilizer sprayer and spray it on the grass. I didn’t do it very often and I didn’t have a control area to see if there was a difference, but it definitely didn’t hurt and I couldn’t smell it.

TIP:

If you store or use Urine in your garden you can prevent and remove the smell my simply adding rubbing alcohol, bleach, or peroxide.  Make sure you dilute the urine with a ratio of 10 to 1.  10 being water 1 part urine.   

[rogersorders]

I'll see your jug of urine and raise you one pile of 

The Humanure Handbook
http://humanurehandbook.com

My wife has come a long way over the years. Getting her to agree to this is part of my five year plan.

The site has some great videos on how to compost it and how to mitigate the safety concerns.

[caverdude]

I got to reply to this one as a trucker. We are known for fertilizing road sides with piss bombs. But I have never thrown out a urine jug or bottle. I pour them out in grass here and there. Usually I pour them out on the back sides of truck stops. So does every other trucker. And guess what? Each spring there is beautiful tall green grass and weeds growing around the edges of any truck stop parking lot. Take a look next time you pass a truck stop. I do hear that urine can raise the salt content in the soil. Anyone know if this is true? I think urine has potassium and nitrogen.

[Skunkeye]

Yes, urine can have a pretty high salt concentration, up to around 2% by weight.  As a point of reference, I think seawater is around 3.5%, so urine is fairly salty.  If you dilute it and use it sparingly, you shouldn't have a problem, since the salt will wash out of the soil over time.  But if you overdo it, you can alter the salinity in your soil, and most plants really aren't fans of high salt levels.  I imagine the amount that builds up in the soil will depend a lot on your soil type and how well it drains (and how frequently you get good soaking rains).

[cheryl1]

Both my husband and son pee off the porch. The grass always does wonderfully in that spot. I did container tomatoes this year, and when they were little plants my guys were peeing on a different one each time. They did great.

[Terroir]

That's one of the reasons working horses were kept in stalls at night with straw or wood shavings as bedding - to capture the urine and other minerals which was added to the compost pile. Great nitrogen source and makes incredible compost!

Just a note, though - hot compost burns off a lot of nitrogen, so you wind up losing a lot of the initial benefits. It has been found that a long (>1year), slow and cooler composting actually destroys more pathogens and weed seeds while keeping more of the nutrients than the currently popular hot, short composting that off-gasses a lot of the volatile nutrients - ie nitrogen.

[chickchoc]

I recall that Majorie Wildcraft advocted using human urine as a fertilizer in one of her updates.  I don't know if she covers this in her current video, though.