Topic: Urine for compost: practicalities of collection

[goodlife]

Seriously..yes..it is brilliant stuff..and it is free ;D For start with it is excellent as nitrogen feed..just don't use it for watering lettuce :-X
..and as compost activator too...but with you having fresh chicken poo anyway you should not need your compost bin activating ;)
If you feel 'funny' about using it for crops..maybe just for fruit bushes and other perennials.
I seem to recall reading from somewhere ...that one person can provide enough nitrogen (in wee) in a year to feed crops within quarter of and acre area...or something along those lines..I'll have dig out that study and read it again ::)

[goodlife]

Uhh...I found it already..my previous answer wasn't quite right for what I remembered..so here we go..
This is bit from Cultivating  our Garden by Jon Jeavons and it about growing biointesive method...
"each person's urine and manure contain approximately enough nutrients to produce enough food to feed that person. However, those nutrients are not enough when they are spread thinly over the one-half to one acre that it takes mechanized commercial agriculture to produce that person's food"

So....world would be much better and 'healthier' place if all start weeing around plot :o :-X ;D ;)

[pumkinlover]

Have you got comfrey patch, you can feed it to the comfrey and add to the leaves when they are soaking as well as water.
Even if you just put it on the compost heap I doubt you would do any damage.

[pumkinlover]

Well I wish I had read the Guardian gardening myth thread before I posted that one!! :-[ :-[ :-[

[Robert_Brenchley]

After a few pees it starts soaking through the bottom. Better to get a barrel, put the surplus in that, and use it diluted as liquid manure.

[PurpleHeather]

At the point of passing, Human urine is sterile and wont do harm (with the possible exception of some one with an infection)

It has kept people alive by drinking it and many a student has drunk it for a bet.

Yes it has been well known for years as a compost activator.

The old farmers used to collect it for soaking the sheep's fleeces in.

Before that the Romans used it in their laundry as a grease remover.

It takes the sting out of a few insect and sea creature bites and the itch out of chilblains.

It is great stuff really and we just flush it away.

You know those spots of grease on clothes which remain after washing, guess what will remove them.

[goodlife]

Ahh...but for washing purposes it have to be 'brewed' for while so that there is some ammonia present...
And well matured wee was used to bleach fleeces wool ;)

[Robert_Brenchley]

It used to be used for tanning leather as well. Tanners in Roman times put urinals in the walls of their workshops, and paid for the contents of people's pisspots. When Vespasian put a tax on the urinals after a mega financial crisis, his son Titus supposedly complained about it. Vespasian produced an aureus (gold coin) with the words, 'Money doesn't smell.'

[Unwashed]

I think it's also a mordant.