Liquid gold

[Multiveg]

I have been reading a book called Liquid Gold - The lore and logic of using urine to grow plants, which I bought yesterday while visiting the centre for alternative technology.

Did you know that urine has been used as a dye fixative (substitute for alum)?
The book also says - "In Sweden, urine has been commonly used to clean wounds as well as ingested as a health tonic."

"Early Romans used urine as a tooth whitener and mouthwash."

"Cheesemakers in Germany and Switzerland used urine in their cheese."

Has been used in wartime to make bombs, explosives, substitute gas masks.

For use on composts, pour it onto a heap with a lot of carbon materials (brown leaves, sawdustm wood shavings, shredded paper,....)

For direct application around plants, dilute it first.

"Every day, people in Britain [book published 2004] excrete about 18 million gallons of urine. Most of it is flushed away. That day's urine contains an estimated 1.4 million pounds of nutrients in the form of nitrogen. By some estimatesm that's enough nitrogen to fertilize up to 6,000 acres of maize in one year. And one year of UK urine could fertilize over two million acres of maize!"

[Multiveg]

[Lily]

I seem to remember a program on TV with Tony Robinson - Worst Jobs in the World, where Urine was used to whitten sheets. And previous posts mention urine being used on the compost.

I have many comments about the aroma in my car as it is eg, petrol for the Tiller, Leeks and Onions.  I'm not sure the aroma of fresh Urine will go down too well. :-[

Lily

[Roy Bham UK]

Somebody's takin the 'P' ;D and it's not April Fools day till Friday ;D

[Aidy]

Though I have not (yet anyway) I do know of a couple of old boys who do, they claim it speeds up the rotting of compost, I have to say looking at their produce that to me it looks about the same as everyone elses, another one makes a tea using rotted manure and urine and then liquid feeds his plants with it but again I cant see any advantage in his crops.
Aidy

[aquilegia]

Mr Aqui waters our compost heap. And it does seem to rot really quickly. (It always amuses me, after he's put the lid of the compost bin down, I still keep reminding him to flush! ;D) But I have yet to collect it and use it to water my crops.

[ina]

My Mr. C. is tall enough to water straight onto the compost heap and once I almost wasted my own laughing when I saw him do a fast, shuffling dance around the heap to end up with his back to the railroad tracks because a train came by. Actually, he spread it out nicely over the heap that way.

[Roy Bham UK]

;D Tee hee this is between you and me you understand ? but at the end of the day I watched the last lottie man disappear off site and decided to take a 'P' between the car and me, as there are no facility's and I was caught out by, not a stranger but a friend and his wife who was returning a tool he borrowed :o

All I can say is thank God it was a friend and not a stranger :o

But don't forget this is between you and me. ;)

[Gadfium]

You know that bit about using pee on wounds...  :(

Well...   :-[   I've tried it.

Seemed to work alright, nice and sterile, cleaned it out nicely. Wasn't anything to write home about, but the conditions weren't great (mangroves/tropics) and everybody'd already seen what a coral scratch could turn into... so I toddled off for a quiet tiddle...

;)

Am I really owning up to this?  I blame all those survival books; Anthony Greenbank & Lofty Wiseman... it's all your fault!

[Svea]

dont forget to use your own pee for treating wounds though :D not your friends'!

good for treating excemas (sp?) as well - skin complaints basically.
and urine doesnt smell (to us humans) once it's dry - which is how some people can use it to wash their hair or body with it.

a friend of mine stepped onto a blowfish or something similar on a beach in cornwall last year - she got stung and doubled over in pain almost immediately. taken to casualty where they gave her strong painkillers and  stuff - she later found out that if she had pee'd on ther foot, it wouldn't have swollen, and the pain would have been much less as the warm urine draws and washes out the toxin
she was quite embarrassed she didnt know that - she an A&E nurse

all good now though

svea

[simhop]

a friend of mine stepped onto a blowfish or something similar on a beach in cornwall last year - she got stung and doubled over in pain almost immediately. taken to casualty where they gave her strong painkillers and stuff - she later found out that if she had pee'd on ther foot, it wouldn't have swollen, and the pain would have been much less as the warm urine draws and washes out the toxin

Reminds me of a funny Friends episode where Joey gets stung by some sort of fish and wanted one of the others to wee on him so he would be better.

I always wee on the compost when I am out working in the garden but then it needs all the help it can get warming up with the -22 we get at winter.

[mark_h]

You know that bit about using pee on wounds...  :(

Well...   :-[   I've tried it.

I'm going to own up and say I've tried it as well - cut myself on barbed wire in the middle of nowhere so I did what come naturally :p

Mark

[Mrs Ava]

I have heard that if you get stung by a jelly fish, urine is the best cure....not that I get many jelly fish on the allotment you understand....  I pee in a bucket and it goes on the heap, after all, well, you know, a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do, and I do take a large flask of coffee with me each visit, and I do have a very very weak bladder.....ahem.....

[Multiveg]

Which reminds me, I need to go - it isn't raining, so can nip outside...

[mitzzy]

my allotment is right next to a public foot path  :o  You can 't spend a penny there ! Luckly the public toliets are not far away :)



Mags

[Ceri]

Does the book give any advice on the girl/boy liquid gold debate - some say that girly wee isn't good for compost only boy wee. 

I too was amused by the sight of Tony Robinson in a huge VAT of old urine stamping up and down on sheep's wool to get the lanolin out - the poor man looked so ill - it had to be wee that was weeks old so they'd saved all the TV crew's wee and carried it about with them.  How glamorous TV land must be!!

[wivvles]

Last evening I felt the need to go to the loo, only to discover my son in residence with his Gameboy!  "Right" I think, "off to the allotment I go...."

Five minutes later, much relieved and compost heap freshly watered.  And a bit of exercise as well.  How virtuous did I feel? ;D

[Catherine]

Don't you all think this may all be a rouse for not having anywhere to wee on plot? "Oh well I've heard if you wee in the compost bin........." :-[
Either way there's no loo's on our site either so with 3 kiddies under 7 helping, I feel the plants may have their fair share!