Most people are probably not comfortable with the idea of using human urine to help feed the plants in vegetable gardens. But I have been using urine as a cheap, convenient and effective form of fertility in the gardens, and I think it is an important part of closing the nutrient cycles in our communities.
0:00 Nutrient Cycling
0:52 A Safe and Easy Option
2:24 Potential Issues
3:48 Collecting and Using Urine
5:47 Grow Bag Trials
7:12 Calculating Amount
8:47 Nitrogen in the Soil
10:43 How Much is Too Much
11:53 Nitrogen as Limiting Factor
13:40 Support this Channel
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46 Comments
Urine definitely is worth using. In early staged of growth and no more than 5ml for every little of water.
Can drink urine, Urine therapy can be a very effective healing modality
Your body's own medicine
Try urine therapy, drink your own urine, Universal medicine
I would pee on the part of my lawn that did poorly and it made it grow better.
I have done the same for over 50 years and add it to the compost bin to speed up decomposition.
Wow amazing good work
When walking in Nepal I found that it was the “the” only fertiliser in the mountains!
I jerk under the trees… for fk sake…
I'm using my own 💩 to fertilize my tomatoes…
You are like a Hertzegovinian
They poo all over their commercial gardens
Makes plants go wild, leeks Gigantic !
Butt srsly, don't do that. It's gross
Dont be disgusting.
I thought urine has too much salt in it for gardening.
My great grandfather owned a small mail order nursery business back in the early 1900s. He included a pamphlet on how to plant and fertilize the trees and vines he sold. In that he mentioned that urine was good fertilizer for grape vines.
I live in a rural area and selectively pee outdoors, according to what needs fertilized. I can attest that blueberries are much sweeter when fertilized with fresh urine.
This video took the piss out of me.
Look into adding ground up Mellon seeds to the urine to fast convert it to ammonia. The Ph change should make it more shelf stable so you can keep it longer and use it more safely.
The worst part about using urine is when you realize that it's free, provides a lot of nutrients but you really just don't pee enough to feed yourself.
That's strange i find this hard to believe because when I was a kid. We lived on a farm and instead of using the bathroom to pee we would pee in a certain area off the deck. All the plant life in that area died and nothing would grow there. Is that a case of nutrient overload or what?
Drinking urine is also good for you
Composting toilets in rural India are built to separate urine (men and women) from solid waste. Urine is collected and diluted as you illustrate. SO yes, it is a very effective soil builder. The difficulty is societal and cultural. Incorporating urine into a compost pile is a no brainer.
Human urine is 100% bioavailable to the plants.
This means it does not need to be broken down by soil microbes.
Human urine first number is 11.
Best urine to use is the morning urine.
For seedlings dilute 20 parts water to one part urine.
For mature plants, 10 parts water to one part urine.
Some plants do not like much nitrogen so adjust accordingly.
Outside the USA, some countries have diverter commodes.
Urine goes down one part of the toilet while solids go down another part.
Both are reclaimed and processed.
Then SOLD as fertilizer to their consumers.
You give it away for free and yet they make money off you.
One of the only issues I have with using urine is the salts but I noticed when you used a little urine you used what I'm assuming is rain water.
Have you ever mixed urine with leaves and rainwater, or Ash.. I've been useing Jadam methods of fertilizing.. I've tried some methods from, Garden Like A Viking…I'm also trying magnets on water , and seeds.. A little Electoculture methods too…
Great topic. I have been using this on my fruit trees. On my chop and drop compost. My inground worm farms straddle important trees and use food scraps, cardboard, a little chop and drop, leaves. Moistened 50% 50% water with P. Brad Lancaster is a water saving , nutrient cycling master in this regard as well. He is so innovative and inspiring . Living on a dry continent with poor soils, every drop of moisture and soil nutrition is just so valuable….certainly no to flushing nutrients down the toilet to waste and pollute our streams and oceans.
I keep a bucket of sawdust for just such reasons next to my wood workshop for just such a reason. It’s good for the compost and stops me spreading sawdust all over the house every time I need to go. The question is of course, to pee or not to pee?
Nope this is where you go to far there's enough fertilizer out there that you don't have to use your own urine, and very effective, that open doors for people to use their own poo on the down low, making their own human compost so when family members come over for the holidays sitting around the family table and the host says something like this, family I have something to tell you those vegetables and fruits you eating I use my piss as fertilizer this comes after, this taste really delicious. A small family riot break out at the table. Nope got the rain to piss on the garden and it's very good for the plants for years.
I have friends in Florida who swear by Vitamin P for their gardenias. The father of the house uses it freely and they have 5 foot high gardenia plants covered with blooms.
Female here. In the summer I keep a 5 gallon bucket with a slitted pool noodle as a seat as my outside potty. Saves going through the house and I use the urine in my garden. Thanks for this video!
I love hoy technical you talk about pee
For many people is difficult just the idea of a composting toilet. And then comes this topic 😉 However, its actually much more gross to send this kind of "waste" to the river.
That can get you sick
I pee on my compost pile so there is that. Lol
I store in a 55 gallon container over winter along with soaking char in another 55 gallon container. Great results. Thanks for spreading this information. These fertilizers these fertilizers where used by our ancient ancestors for thousands of years. It supersizes me that the squeamish often don't mind animal dung in their gardens. Chicken manure, bovine dung and the like are most common. Most pathogens of solid and liquid human excreta die in a 6 month period. One does have to consider vectors like slugs and snails when dealing with liver flukes.
Should you be worried about table salt (NaCl) content that is not supposed to be good for plants?
must try
Peeing on your plants keeps deer away
makes you go bald though
I used urine 1:1 for my potatoes and zucchini last year with no issues, sometimes daily. Potatoes which did not get urine got more pale leaves.
Check with your county health department to see if its legal. I live in Summit County, OH. and they came and told me not to do any human composting. If I did they would pursue legal actions. It was my neighbor that blew me in.
This was a funny and informative video Bruce. My parents found one of “the jugs” that had the “natural organic liquid fertilizer” and freaked out so from there I used a tiny bit of blue pond dye, which also alleged that there were beneficial bacteria in there… also the (cold hardy) tropicals could get peed on multiple times daily and they love it. Especially bananas, I had a young banana plant (Dwarf Orinoco) that grew over 6’ in a single season (that doesn’t ever happen their first year) because of daily doses in addition to the regular watering to get it established.
It's called Milorganite: Milwaukee sewage…
Have collected and used urine… failed to dilute and killed with kindness. Oops. Have no issue with it's use at all. 🐓 Poop:
i personally use a pee bucket that is full of charcoal as a great way of capturing nutrients from urine, and encourage my kids to urinate straight in the compost heap or the garden. they think it's pretty funny.
Thank you. I've been using urine in my compost to great effect. Good video.
But how about urine that comes from people using antibiotics, blood pressure pills, and the rest of the pharmacy shelves?
Thank you for this video. I think it is an important subject for the reasons you have outlined so well. With urine, there's one challenge though which I'd like to mention: Urine contains a lot of salt (sodium chloride). In order to not ruin the soil in the long run it is nessecary to wash out the salt from time to time. While washing out nutrients may seem a negative thing at first it is actually nessecary to get rid of the salt load that urine brings.
Excellent video. Lot to learns
Have you considered treating the urine? In the aquarium hobby they use a media bead that cultures bacteria that changes the ammonia to a plant usable nitrates/ rates…lol can't keep em straight. I considered an idea of a urinal style that is hooked to a small air pump //wind solar driven. That turned a small amount of water continuously aerating. Then using simple testing kit could confirm the state of the unit and the when it would be good to remove some of the liquid. Eg… water change at 50% to 80%. Just a though. Hope you find it interesting