Wherein I find support for peeing on the compost pile in this morning’s NYTimes OpEd section.
Urine might be one way forward. Before engineers scoff into their breakfast, consider that since at least 135,000 urine-diversion toilets are in use in Sweden and that a Swiss aquatic institute did a six-year study of urine separation that found in its favor. In Sweden, some of the collected urine — which contains 80 percent of the nutrients in excrement — is given to farmers, with little objection. “If they can use urine and it’s cheap, they’ll use it,†said Petter Jenssen, a professor at the Agricultural University of Norway.
It adds moisture, it adds a little heat, and deer don’t like it. It also does a great job of deterring groundhogs. Who needs coyote urine?
Mine hasn’t kept the wildlife away. (Neither do the dogs.) But I do think it helps the leaves break down.
People think I am crazy for talking about peeing in the compost pile.
I even wanted to save it in a bottle in the house so the neighbor would not see me!
My wife thinks I am nuts.
But I am determined to not use chemical fertilizer this year!
LOL! 🙂
Not only do you get quicker compost with added nutrients, consider that the average person uses gallons upon gallons of water to flush 1.5 liters of urine a day…
Interesting. Now, if you’re using your own urine, then you know what’s in it, of course. But use the Sweden example of urine… um, collectives?… instead, when thinking about these next few comments:
I wonder whether there is (or should be) any concern about the concentrated pharmaceuticals that would be contained in such a thing. They find that antibiotics, hormones, etc., already end up in our watersheds… what would applying them to food crops in such a concentrated form as undiluted urine do to them?
And that also begs the question of how to apply such a product to the garden… do they dilute it with water before using? Or is urine not as acidic as I am imagining it to be? Just thinking here of the “dog spots” on lawns where the dog’s urine burns out the grass, and thinking about how you have to be careful with that stuff…
(Am I overthinking all of this, or what?! lo.)
Why do my neighbors have to yell at me and cover their childrens’ eyes when they walk by as I’m gardening out front? I’m gonna make this into a sign and put it in the lawn. My property. My garden. I’m careful to watch what I eat–some days I’ll eat less potassium for certain plants, more for others. Or something. I give up on this.