I urinate frequently in my garden. It is a great usable source of nitrogen for the plants and seems to speed up compost formation. Like anything too much of a good thing is not good so spread the love around as you may create excess acid in the soil if you only used one spot to enrich the soil. I live in So Cal where we import 65% of our water so I would never waste up to three gallons of precious water just to pee, the brown stuff is a different matter and since I do not have composting toilet!
There is a reason why God has the urine flow away from the body. I wouldn't want any percentage of toxins going into my garden. It only takes a yahoo to figure out a way to use their urine. In some cultures it is customary to drink the urine. It is very benificial. I suggest everyone in favor of piss gardening have a glass on me. Just tell us piss-less farmers where to send it.
@dealcrusher You do know that farmers routinely use cow manure as a fertilizer, right? You do understand that we are all made of chemicals that have been recycled countless times on this planet, right? Chemicals that right now make up you and me are of course the same chemicals that have previously been part of the foods we eat, the air we breath (after exhaled by others), the soil that our food grew in, the bugs and animals and plants that died and decomposed in that soil, etc.
I would think you would end up with a lot of problems using urine in the garden. You have bacteria and toxins being flushed out of your bladder and kidneys. You are then going to put the toxity into soil for your plants. "Why thanks," says your neighbor. "For all the veggies, but what is that odor I smell?"
@dealcrusher 1) normal urine is sterile (no bugs), so unless you have a urinary tract infection there are no bacteria. 2) "toxins" to us is excess nitrogen, which plants need. Similar to our exhaled carbon monoxide being good for plants and their oxygen being good for us. 3) No significant smell, which is great since that was my main concern before doing this. 4) Happy gardening!
@dealcrusher dude, your forefathers have been using human manure and urine for a long time. There isn't any problems. No the drugs/medicine you take has a limit affect as a large percentage are expelled by the skin and breath. Only a small percentage makes it in your urine.
@jdubinc Yes, that's a common question/concern. Fortunately, there is almost no smell from the urine, or at least not much different from how it smells when you pee at the toilet. The compost pile itself has no urine smell at all. The pee is composted nicely.
@jdubinc The smell that you normally get from peeing on a wall, is from the ammonia that gets developed. This isn't a problem as the bateria from a compost pile trives on ammonia and "eats" it before it gets too fruitful
@thepeacesignfactory Hi. These straw bales were on my front lawn, so actually I couldn't pee directly onto them without risking being seen by neighbors, police, etc. Also, by peeing in a jug I don't have to pee in the rain, snow, night, nor in my pajamas, barefoot, etc. Peace
@BooGooNFlowoo4Evoo Well, if you see a jug like this in my bathroom or being poured on my compost, my advice would be to assume it is NOT apple juice!
@OrganicGarden123 :) A joke! Did they never play Is It Apple Juice? at your school? When you pee in a freshly emptied juice jug with a little pinger inside, the apple scent masks the urine, especially if it's kept cold. Assorted shenanigans may ensue, but, you're of course going to hell if you let anyone drink the urine.
Usually, I can produce a 24ounce wizz when I am driving and drinking a lot of coffee. I can't imagine the the nitrogen content of a good coffee wizz after 10AM. Coffee wizz has to be like anhydrous ammonia.
@jambalulu Hi. I produce about 2-3 gallons of urine per week at home (I don't save my urine from when I'm away from home, e.g. at work), and all of it is used for gardening.
@ravengurlxx For centuries farmers have used animal manure to help grow healthy crops. Adding urine to your compost adds many nutrients that will help the crops grow, providing you with healthy food. I would not add urine straight to the veggies themselves, unless you dilute it a lot with water. But you can add it straight to your compost pile. Happy gardening!
@ravengurlxx straight piss will burn the plants up b/c the nitrogen count is so high. mixing 4:1 is a good start when adding to plants. 4 parts water to 1 part piss. if you dilute the piss even more it definitly wont hurt anything.
@vidaripollen Yes, I agree that it is incredibly wasteful to use lots drinkable, fresh, clean water to wash pee down the toilet. It is actually a ridiculous system.
I read a study recently about how Montreal-ians are poisoning their fish with anti-depressants excreted in their urine. Apparently about 1 in 4 people up there take them.
@eicebleu Yeah, it would be very tough and expensive to try to remove individual drugs/chemicals at the water filtration site. I definitely would trust that a year's worth of worms and good microbes in a compost pile all year would do a better job than your local municipality, and my compost way does so without using any toxic chemicals, etc., in the process. (Also, since I only take a multivitamin I guess my pee is just adding more nutrients for the worms/microbes and eventually for veggies!)
@FutureLaugh Regarding smell.... Actually, that's what surprised me most. My wife was initially reluctant for us to start composting because she was worried it would smell. We have both been very pleasantly surprised that a typical compost pile (whether with urine or not) really gives off no significant odor. As long as you don't put dairy products in there (think spoiled milk!) the compost has either no smell, or just a faint, nice, 'earthy' smell if you hold some compost up to your nose.
@OrganicGarden123 And on the plus side, the smell from your urine will help deter aminals like Deer if you live in a wooded area. :) For me...it's the chipmunks I want to keep away. Hate them noisy buggers...
yeah, that's the problem, if you take drugs. It is well known that our water treatment centers are NOT getting all the drugs and hormones out, so we are getting small quantities of drugs, and these build up.
@farawayletters Reverse Osmosis filter will fix that. Well worth the investment for a small unit ($250-300ish) that can fit under any kitchen sink. Bought mine two years ago & we use it a lot (both for plants & drinking/cooking water). The only thing we have to buy is a new membrane which is around $80, but it lasts for at least a year. That's an uber small price to pay yearly for cleaner water from city tap.
Its better to store the urine for a couple of weeks to mature that way the ammonia builds up producing far more Nitrogen. Men have no problem collecting it for obvious reasons, women however need to use a bucket
@powerspade Yeah, I've heard that letting the urine "brew" a while can work too, before pouring it on the compost, etc. I wonder if that ammonia in the air would just mean that the nitrogen gets lost as a gas instead of going onto my compost as a liquid, but I don't know. More importantly, I know that if I extended my urine collection to have multiple jogs of urine in the house my wife would flip. A single jug she can tolerate!
Urine is 95% water, 2.5% uric acid and the rest from stuff you get out of everyday food. It comes out totally sterile. People have been using it in one way or another for centuries.
Did you put dirt or compost on top of your bales? What did you grow and how did everything turn out? I am interested in trying a few veggies using this technique.
@Nubster12: I used both dirt and compost on top of my straw bales, then I repeatedly let rain and my own urine seep through to compost them over the winter. In the bales, I grew mostly tomatoes, celery, potatoes and they did great. From my channel page, you can see some videos showing the results: "Front Yard Gardening, mid Sept" and another video called "Straw Bale to grow Potatoes"
@Larua54: Short answer is that I don't know. For me, I don't smoke or take any meds, so it's a no brainer. For smokers, nicotine is in urine. Many prescription meds get excreted via urine, too. My guess is that most such chemicals would get broken down by the composting process, or be no different than the remnants of meds that are already in our municipal water (studies have shown that) that we ingest directly. If you're on chemotherapy... probably keep your urine out of your garden or compost.
@oblrman: someone else asked about salt in urine on one of my urine compost or urine straw videos. There are some salts in urine, but that might help with some plants and probably adds lots of mico-minerals to the straw or to compost. I produce about 2-3 gallons of urine per week at home (I don't save my urine from work), and all of it is used for gardening. Throughout the winter I add it to 3 straw bales. In summer, the bales are growing stuff so the urine goes onto my piles of compost leaves.
It hardly smells at all. My 2-part answer on smell: 1=inside, 2=outside.
1) Inside: unlike letting pee sit in the toilet (which some folks do, to conserve on flushings), a closed jug of urine does NOT smell up the bathroom at all.
2) Outside: it smells no more than any composting, which is just a faint smell of rich earth... actually quite pleasant. I, too, was concerned... thinking that I may have to throw out the straw bale if it smelled bad, but that never happened. It worked out great.
Drink more water. That urine is awfully yellow.
CCourson05 3 days ago
@CCourson05 Pee in a 1-gallon jug with cloudy/opaque walls, and you will see that your urine looks darker. Cheers!
OrganicGarden123 3 days ago
I urinate frequently in my garden. It is a great usable source of nitrogen for the plants and seems to speed up compost formation. Like anything too much of a good thing is not good so spread the love around as you may create excess acid in the soil if you only used one spot to enrich the soil. I live in So Cal where we import 65% of our water so I would never waste up to three gallons of precious water just to pee, the brown stuff is a different matter and since I do not have composting toilet!
larry1369 1 week ago
There is a reason why God has the urine flow away from the body. I wouldn't want any percentage of toxins going into my garden. It only takes a yahoo to figure out a way to use their urine. In some cultures it is customary to drink the urine. It is very benificial. I suggest everyone in favor of piss gardening have a glass on me. Just tell us piss-less farmers where to send it.
dealcrusher 1 week ago
@dealcrusher You do know that farmers routinely use cow manure as a fertilizer, right? You do understand that we are all made of chemicals that have been recycled countless times on this planet, right? Chemicals that right now make up you and me are of course the same chemicals that have previously been part of the foods we eat, the air we breath (after exhaled by others), the soil that our food grew in, the bugs and animals and plants that died and decomposed in that soil, etc.
OrganicGarden123 3 days ago
bet it smells like my local bum x100
am9110024 1 week ago
I would think you would end up with a lot of problems using urine in the garden. You have bacteria and toxins being flushed out of your bladder and kidneys. You are then going to put the toxity into soil for your plants. "Why thanks," says your neighbor. "For all the veggies, but what is that odor I smell?"
dealcrusher 3 weeks ago
@dealcrusher 1) normal urine is sterile (no bugs), so unless you have a urinary tract infection there are no bacteria. 2) "toxins" to us is excess nitrogen, which plants need. Similar to our exhaled carbon monoxide being good for plants and their oxygen being good for us. 3) No significant smell, which is great since that was my main concern before doing this. 4) Happy gardening!
OrganicGarden123 3 weeks ago
@dealcrusher dude, your forefathers have been using human manure and urine for a long time. There isn't any problems. No the drugs/medicine you take has a limit affect as a large percentage are expelled by the skin and breath. Only a small percentage makes it in your urine.
qin02 1 week ago
I'm all about this... but seeing that pee and imagining the smell makes me almost throw up.
jdubinc 1 month ago
@jdubinc Yes, that's a common question/concern. Fortunately, there is almost no smell from the urine, or at least not much different from how it smells when you pee at the toilet. The compost pile itself has no urine smell at all. The pee is composted nicely.
OrganicGarden123 1 month ago
@jdubinc The smell that you normally get from peeing on a wall, is from the ammonia that gets developed. This isn't a problem as the bateria from a compost pile trives on ammonia and "eats" it before it gets too fruitful
qin02 1 week ago
The video would be better if you just pee on the hay bail. You could do it without exposing yourself.
thepeacesignfactory 2 months ago
@thepeacesignfactory Hi. These straw bales were on my front lawn, so actually I couldn't pee directly onto them without risking being seen by neighbors, police, etc. Also, by peeing in a jug I don't have to pee in the rain, snow, night, nor in my pajamas, barefoot, etc. Peace
OrganicGarden123 2 months ago
Now the big question in that guy's house is...is it urine, or is it apple juice? You'll never know unless you open the jug...
BooGooNFlowoo4Evoo 4 months ago
@BooGooNFlowoo4Evoo Well, if you see a jug like this in my bathroom or being poured on my compost, my advice would be to assume it is NOT apple juice!
OrganicGarden123 4 months ago
@OrganicGarden123 :) A joke! Did they never play Is It Apple Juice? at your school? When you pee in a freshly emptied juice jug with a little pinger inside, the apple scent masks the urine, especially if it's kept cold. Assorted shenanigans may ensue, but, you're of course going to hell if you let anyone drink the urine.
BooGooNFlowoo4Evoo 3 months ago
Usually, I can produce a 24ounce wizz when I am driving and drinking a lot of coffee. I can't imagine the the nitrogen content of a good coffee wizz after 10AM. Coffee wizz has to be like anhydrous ammonia.
armanflint 4 months ago
Good Idea
ytmalveo 4 months ago
That must smell delightful
flanksteak2 6 months ago 2
HOW MUCH PISS DID YOU HAVE??!?
jambalulu 7 months ago
@jambalulu Hi. I produce about 2-3 gallons of urine per week at home (I don't save my urine from when I'm away from home, e.g. at work), and all of it is used for gardening.
OrganicGarden123 7 months ago
would you use it on vegetables? or is that poisonous 2 humans? lol im finding this very amusing btw but this is a serious question!
ravengurlxx 7 months ago
@ravengurlxx For centuries farmers have used animal manure to help grow healthy crops. Adding urine to your compost adds many nutrients that will help the crops grow, providing you with healthy food. I would not add urine straight to the veggies themselves, unless you dilute it a lot with water. But you can add it straight to your compost pile. Happy gardening!
OrganicGarden123 7 months ago
@ravengurlxx straight piss will burn the plants up b/c the nitrogen count is so high. mixing 4:1 is a good start when adding to plants. 4 parts water to 1 part piss. if you dilute the piss even more it definitly wont hurt anything.
DeadEyeRabbit 6 months ago
@ravengurlxx urine is sterile, doesn't carry any pathogens whatsoever.
Sh*t on the other hand does & requires extensive composting before you can use it.
tavascarow 3 months ago
@LICKETYSPLITALNG I know right!!!!
CimaraNyx 7 months ago
Couldn't you just pee on the hay bales?
CimaraNyx 7 months ago 3
Flushing that precious pee n poop after mixing thoroughly in 15 litre of pure fresh water is sooo dumb.
vidaripollen 10 months ago
@vidaripollen Yes, I agree that it is incredibly wasteful to use lots drinkable, fresh, clean water to wash pee down the toilet. It is actually a ridiculous system.
OrganicGarden123 10 months ago 4
@vidaripollen shows we are neither logical nor scientific?
vidaripollen 10 months ago
Let's CHANGE the poem FROM "If its brown flush it down. If its yellow let it mellow." TO:
"If its brown flush it down. But the urine you should keep, put it on your compost heap." (my son helped create this poem)
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
I read a study recently about how Montreal-ians are poisoning their fish with anti-depressants excreted in their urine. Apparently about 1 in 4 people up there take them.
eicebleu 1 year ago
@eicebleu Yeah, it would be very tough and expensive to try to remove individual drugs/chemicals at the water filtration site. I definitely would trust that a year's worth of worms and good microbes in a compost pile all year would do a better job than your local municipality, and my compost way does so without using any toxic chemicals, etc., in the process. (Also, since I only take a multivitamin I guess my pee is just adding more nutrients for the worms/microbes and eventually for veggies!)
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
@eicebleu blink, blink, blink...:-)
CimaraNyx 7 months ago
your backyard must smell outstanding
FutureLaugh 1 year ago
@FutureLaugh Regarding smell.... Actually, that's what surprised me most. My wife was initially reluctant for us to start composting because she was worried it would smell. We have both been very pleasantly surprised that a typical compost pile (whether with urine or not) really gives off no significant odor. As long as you don't put dairy products in there (think spoiled milk!) the compost has either no smell, or just a faint, nice, 'earthy' smell if you hold some compost up to your nose.
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
@OrganicGarden123 "earthy" like the back of a bar alleyway or a stairwell? why do homeless people smell so earthy?
FutureLaugh 1 year ago
@OrganicGarden123 And on the plus side, the smell from your urine will help deter aminals like Deer if you live in a wooded area. :) For me...it's the chipmunks I want to keep away. Hate them noisy buggers...
rexenne 1 year ago
yeah, that's the problem, if you take drugs. It is well known that our water treatment centers are NOT getting all the drugs and hormones out, so we are getting small quantities of drugs, and these build up.
farawayletters 1 year ago
@farawayletters Reverse Osmosis filter will fix that. Well worth the investment for a small unit ($250-300ish) that can fit under any kitchen sink. Bought mine two years ago & we use it a lot (both for plants & drinking/cooking water). The only thing we have to buy is a new membrane which is around $80, but it lasts for at least a year. That's an uber small price to pay yearly for cleaner water from city tap.
rexenne 1 year ago
study has shown urine is good as fertilizer. i forgot what is the name of the university that did the study. #LOL
KhmerD0g 1 year ago
Its better to store the urine for a couple of weeks to mature that way the ammonia builds up producing far more Nitrogen. Men have no problem collecting it for obvious reasons, women however need to use a bucket
powerspade 1 year ago
@powerspade Yeah, I've heard that letting the urine "brew" a while can work too, before pouring it on the compost, etc. I wonder if that ammonia in the air would just mean that the nitrogen gets lost as a gas instead of going onto my compost as a liquid, but I don't know. More importantly, I know that if I extended my urine collection to have multiple jogs of urine in the house my wife would flip. A single jug she can tolerate!
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
Urine is 95% water, 2.5% uric acid and the rest from stuff you get out of everyday food. It comes out totally sterile. People have been using it in one way or another for centuries.
Tommyr 1 year ago
Did you put dirt or compost on top of your bales? What did you grow and how did everything turn out? I am interested in trying a few veggies using this technique.
Nubster12 1 year ago
@Nubster12: I used both dirt and compost on top of my straw bales, then I repeatedly let rain and my own urine seep through to compost them over the winter. In the bales, I grew mostly tomatoes, celery, potatoes and they did great. From my channel page, you can see some videos showing the results: "Front Yard Gardening, mid Sept" and another video called "Straw Bale to grow Potatoes"
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
Is the diet of the person urinating an issue?
Obviously no antibiotics, but how about cigarette smoke etc?
Larua54 1 year ago
@Larua54: Short answer is that I don't know. For me, I don't smoke or take any meds, so it's a no brainer. For smokers, nicotine is in urine. Many prescription meds get excreted via urine, too. My guess is that most such chemicals would get broken down by the composting process, or be no different than the remnants of meds that are already in our municipal water (studies have shown that) that we ingest directly. If you're on chemotherapy... probably keep your urine out of your garden or compost.
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
Does the urine add too much salt? How many times do you add urine to the straw?
oblrman 2 years ago
@oblrman: someone else asked about salt in urine on one of my urine compost or urine straw videos. There are some salts in urine, but that might help with some plants and probably adds lots of mico-minerals to the straw or to compost. I produce about 2-3 gallons of urine per week at home (I don't save my urine from work), and all of it is used for gardening. Throughout the winter I add it to 3 straw bales. In summer, the bales are growing stuff so the urine goes onto my piles of compost leaves.
OrganicGarden123 1 year ago
this must smell nice
dalibor4017 2 years ago
It hardly smells at all. My 2-part answer on smell: 1=inside, 2=outside.
1) Inside: unlike letting pee sit in the toilet (which some folks do, to conserve on flushings), a closed jug of urine does NOT smell up the bathroom at all.
2) Outside: it smells no more than any composting, which is just a faint smell of rich earth... actually quite pleasant. I, too, was concerned... thinking that I may have to throw out the straw bale if it smelled bad, but that never happened. It worked out great.
OrganicGarden123 2 years ago