Recognizing the value of a free, and abundant, fertilizer for your garden
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Wow! It once again required a study – or studies even – it would appear to prove something that our ancestors have known all the time. One of these days those epidemics will be able to invent the wheel even, of that I am sure.
Every time almost when the subject of urine in the garden is raised someone will claim that it is unsanitary to do so. However, it has been done for time immemorial and the Center for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales has been doing it ever since it was founded.
The unsanitary comment is a common statement, as said, when the subject of huma waste comes up but urine is a little different here than other human waste – if you know what I mean. I fact urine can be used as a disinfectant for cuts, for instance, if nothing else is at hand and there are other uses too for it.
Urine is a valuable organic fertilizer but it appears that Americans and some others are way behind in recognizing the agricultural value of urine.
For more than a decade, 130 households in Stockholm, Sweden, have collected their urine – amounting to nearly 40,000 gallons of it per year – and trucked it off to be sprayed on crops. More than 600,000 Chinese households in at a large number of the country's provinces use special urine-diverting toilets to fertilize crops such as sugarcane, watermelons, and peanuts. Farming communities in many African countries have also taken up the practice of collecting urine. And in the central Mexican village of Tepoztlán, an environmental group wheels a urine-collecting porta-potty to fiestas and uses the cache on local fields.
Human urine is a very high-quality fertilizer. It is so high-quality, in fact, that it is reckoned that a single person's urine would be enough to fertilize up to one tenth of an acre of vegetables for an entire year. There is a certain grossness factor that would undoubtedly turn some people off of the whole idea of using urine on their veggie garden, but this is not such an outlandish idea at all and before we destine this for the rubbish heap, let us look at what is really going on here.
Let us, for a moment, set aside the issue of bodily fluids and letting them loose in the garden and look at what good fertilizers consist of. On any bag of either synthetic or organic fertilizer you would buy, there are three numbers that are commonly known as the NPK ratio.
N = nitrogen, which is important for stem and leaf development,
P = phosphorous, which aids root development, as well as flower and fruit production, and
K = potassium, which provides for general overall plant health and disease-resistance.
While I do not have the NPK ratio for human urine to hand, if indeed there is one, it is known that urine it is high in nitrogen, and also provides good doses of phosphorous and potassium.
Urine in fact was also collected for a different purpose in the 16th century in England, for example, and that was for the making of gunpowder. The crystallized urine is basically potassium-nitrate and equal to saltpeter.
In a 2007 Washington Post story they followed a study in which human urine was used to fertilize cabbage (cabbage was chosen because it requires a lot of nitrogen for strong growth). The study found that the cabbages fertilized with human urine were larger at harvest, grew to their maximum size more quickly, and suffered less insect damage than cabbages grown with conventional fertilizers.
One concern that has been raised about using urine as a fertilizer, especially for edible crops, is that any pharmaceuticals that a person is taking could be passed along to the soil and plants via the urine. In that 2007 Washington Post story one of the leading scientists in the cabbage study was quoted in saying that any pathogens that survived in the urine would have to battle it out with microorganisms that already exist in the soil. He also said that, most likely, those pathogens would lose.
Tips for Using Urine as Fertilizer
It might probably best to dilute one's urine by mixing it with water. A 50/50 mix would probably be best.
Do not apply urine directly to the plants. Use it to water the soil around the plants instead. Applied to the plants it would burn the leaves and destroy the crop.
If you'd rather not use urine to fertilize your garden, you can add it to the compost pile.
This idea may not be for everyone, for some may simply shy away from it for “yuck” reasons and such, but it's an interesting concept, and human urine as a possible option for farmers and gardeners who are low on cash.
In addition to that it is certainly better than using chemical fertilizers that anyway are nothing but a chemical cocktail of NPK.
© 2009
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