Urine as Fertilizer?

That sounds rather disgusting to me! My best friend urinates in his garden because he is too lazy to go upstairs and use the toilet and he encourages his guests to do the same, is garden absolutely stinks of stale urine! I don't know if using it on your plants works, I would hate to be around the smell on a Summer's evening!

 

Interesting. I've never heard of urine as a fertilizer. Are we talking about people or animal urine lol? I have heard of urine being used as an antiseptic on wounds before but fertilizer is a new one. Its kind of gross that bodily waste is commonly used to grow food that we eat. And that it works. I wonder how people first discovered that?

 

I just had to laugh. This article reminded me of one of my neighbours who had a so-called "organic composting toilet". Basically it was just a big pot in the garden shed with a bucket of sawdust next to it. The pot was quite large and had a wooden toilet seat for comfort. All people in that household, and also visitors, were encouraged to "contribute" to the compost. Whenever the pot was full, my neighbour would carry it to a large composting bin in his garden and empty the content into it. Later, after turning the bin many times and letting things inside it break down naturally, he would use this compost for his organic vegetable garden.
Once I asked him whether he wasn't concerned about certain diseases that can be spread through feces, but he just looked at me as if I was the most ignorant person he had ever come across, and said nothing.

 

I've heard contrasting things about this. Not cleaning the veggies and stuff well after this can cause disease, plus I heard that certain chemicals in the pee will actually kill plants. I don't know, I wouldn't do it. I was always fond of using horse poo or making my own with left over foods. Just seems easier and cleaner oddly enough.

 

I'm all about being efficient and saving money, but using urine as fertilizer ... never. When I was little and my grandparents grew pigs we used the manure to fertilize our fields (potato and corn), but that's a whole different story. Also, deansaliba is right about the smell. Imagine you use urine and there's little rain in that month, the heat will deliver a stench you'll never forget

 

You're supposed to dilute the urine with water. Just using it straight will kill the plants, the same as animal urine kills them.
I think it's supposed to be 10 parts water to one part urine. I don't use it because I'm happy with my store bought plant food.

 

Interesting, although a bit gross. Like ACSAPA said, you are supposed to dilute the urine with water, otherwise it will be too acidic for the plant. I have heard people use their own feces as fertilizer, though like this one, I'm not too sure about the effectiveness of it.

Regardless, always wash your fruits and veggies before eating them.

 

My gardening group has several people in the group that use urine on their plants. The urine as helps to keep undesirable animals out of the garden area. I have not used urine in my garden and I am not sure if I will, I can see using urine on flowers but not vegetables I plan to eat.

 

I have heard about this. One of the reasons why I don't exactly rave about organic food. They dilute it with water and let it ferment for some time.

 

Considering you have to dilute the urine I wonder how much money it saves in the long run, unless you have a catchment system and are therefore getting free water. Even then it might be quite a bit of effort.

I’ve actually used a composting toilet in my time - almost moved into that place, in fact. Ay. Bullet dodged in so many ways. And thinking about it makes me want to wash my produce extra well.

 

I think it's alright but I'd personally never use it for plants I intend to eat. I'd maybe consider it if I were just growing flowers or any other decorative plants but otherwise if I I'm planning on using the plant as ingredients for whatever it is I'm cooking I'd much rather just keep things traditional even though I knows it really won't affect it much but I just would never be able to forget about what I'm putting into it.

 

I really do not think that urine can act as a suitable fertilizer, especially for plants. remember, plants can actually die from harmful substances, substances that are acidic- like urine, can cause this death. Try "watering" your garden with only urine and see what it does it to. Lol, that's the perfect answer to the question "whether urine can be used as a fertilizer"

 

I haven't heard of that except for in the case of gardenia bushes. Supposedly urine is very good for gardenias and will help keep the leaves from falling off. I don't know though. The whole idea of fertilizing with urine is a little too green for me.

 

Tell that to a patch of grass in my front yard. We used to have a Collie named Jasmine. We call that patch "Jasmines bathroom" because that's where she went to do her business. It grows faster and greener than any other part of the yard.

I get the part about diluting the urine though. That does make sense from a "smell" perspective.

 

I remember the story of my sister in law that her father was always urinating on their lemon plant. And it was fruiting heavily so my father in law said that it was his urine that was like a fertilizer. But my sister in law would counter that it was the medicines in the urine that makes the plants grow because my father in law has a lot of medications.