Pissin’ about,
the re-blog…

September 16, 2010

Didn’t go to the farmers’ market this Saturday

(First published 13 September, 2009 under the title: Not piss-poor anymore)

One of the reasons I gave my Amsterdam kitchen garden the name Slim Pickins was to show that even a postage stamp-sized garden with a relatively little crop could serve up a surprising amount of food. But the real reason was that it had piss poor soil and I always thought the garden looked scrawny. I used to blame the slow rate of growth on the location, but visits to many local organic farms and especially to the nearby school gardens had made it painfully clear that the anemia of my produce had nothing to do with living so close to the Polar Circle. Well maintained school gardens right in the middle of the city were lush because they had great soil.

I’ll be chewing this cud all week

In the hope of increasing soil nutrients, I grew the green manures that were hugely successful in the Occitanian kitchen garden. But at Slim Pickins, the alfalfa, vetch, fenugreek and phacelia didn’t burgeon and produce huge mats of biomass like they did in the south, in a large part due to the blasted ground conditions. I’d been thinking about asking a farmer I knew if he’d bring me a load of composted manure, but I never ended up going ahead with this because I just don’t like the idea of importing large volumes of additives from afar. Searching for a solution closer to home, I considered making a worm composter and biking the castings over one recycled yoghurt container at a time, but there were already so many worms casting away in the garden that this plan just seemed bass-ackwards.

By the time I had returned to my garden in August I had basically resigned myself to a mediocre harvest. But two weeks ago I starting bumping into links about fertilizing with urine. I knew that pee was nutrient rich, balanced in nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, and I had no problem with it in the animal manure. Why it hadn’t occurred to me to try using my own I’ll just chalk up to a deeply ingrained societal taboo against humanure. One YouTube video and 3 articles later and suddenly urine fertilizer seemed like a painless experiment with a material both abundant and free. I decided to give it a go. I might have even been giddy, biking over all those recycled yoghurt containers filled with pee.

Not piss poor anymore

Following instructions, in a big bucket I diluted (DILUTE! DILUTE! OK!) 1 part fresh pee to 10 parts Amsterdam tap water, gave it a stir and poured it on my soil, trying to avoid splashing the leaves. It’s possible that there was some more giddiness at this point. Recycled yoghurt containers empty, I left the garden and returned one week later.

AND…
WOWWY!
KAZOWWY!
And now with jazz hands!

Pity I didn’t make scientific-style before and after pictures but you’ll have to believe me when I say that the results were striking. In one week’s time all of the plants suddenly produced a great deal of leaf, and the leaf-colour seemed to have deepened considerably. All of the plants, but especially the climbing ones (calabas and hokkaido), appear to have undergone an enormous growth spurt. This happened during a waning moon, and with ever cooling temperatures. At home in the window box my spindly vervain and green shiso that had always resembled bonsais, suddenly filled out in their pot.

Possibly you are thinking, “Hey Nut-Job, OY VEY, what about the SMELL, what about the TASTE?” I can report that there is no urine or amonia smell at all, even on my indoor plants. (When I saw the difference in just a few days on the herbs, I had to try it indoors.) Some of the net-lit studies suggest that insects (like aphids) can taste the difference and stay away. I can’t taste … any… urine. Well, how do you know what urine tastes like? I don’t know, how do you don’t? What? I don’t know. Shut up.

And to get back to the reason I did this in the first place, the Slim Pickins kitchen garden produced a two bike-bag bumper crop and it looks like next week will be the same. I had such an abundant harvest (chard, kohlrabi, kale, cavalo nero, various leafy herbs, tomatoes, chives) that I didn’t need to go to the Farmers’ Market. Although I don’t think the folks at Organic Farm the Knotwilg will have to get another day job, the results in my garden after just one week of urine fertilizing are impressive.

In case you were planning on coming over for a nibble of some Slim Pickins goodness, I’m harvesting on Saturdays and fertilizing on Mondays. You’ll probably pray for rain.

• Urine Charge Every day we urinate away nutrients–nutrients that could grow food, fiber, flowers and even fuel! Human urine contains nutrients in the form of nitrogen, which plants love, and it’s usually pathogen free.

  Tomatoes thrive on urine diet …Yields for plants fertilized with urine quadrupled and matched those of mineral-fertilized plants. The urine-fertilized tomatoes also contained more protein and were safe for human consumption.

  A great review of Steve Solomon’s book, ‘Gardening When it Counts, Growing Food in Hard Times’ …The main issue with growing plants the biointensive way, Solomon writes, is that in addition to the extra work of turning over the soil 24 inches deep, a large number of plants growing close to each other will have an high demand for water and nutrients, made even more acute by their inability to fully grow out their root structure due to competition from neighboring plants. In contrast, Solomon offers advice and guides for growing vegetables in larger, more spread out beds that will grow (in his opinion) more robust and more nutritious food, taking a fraction of the time, water and energy needed to keep the biointensive beds running.

  Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times by Steve Solomon …Designed for readers with no experience and applicable to most areas in the English-speaking world except the tropics and hot deserts, this book shows that any family with access to 3-5,000 sq. ft. of garden land can halve their food costs using a growing system requiring just the odd bucketful of household waste water, perhaps two hundred dollars worth of hand tools, and about the same amount spent on supplies – working an average of two hours a day during the growing season.

  Online version of the Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins, humanure expert

  Human Urine As A Safe, Inexpensive Fertilizer For Food Crops Researchers in Finland are reporting successful use of an unlikely fertilizer for farm fields that is inexpensive, abundantly available, and undeniably organic — human urine. Their report on use of urine to fertilize cabbage crops is scheduled for the Oct. 31 issue of ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

  Your Crap, Our Compost: Turning Human Feces Into Fertile Soil A generally fecal-phobic society reacts to the thought with a mix of snickering interest and fearful aversion, all dispatched in a single flush. But Nance Klehm, 43-year-old urban forager and grower, transforms human excrement into nutritious soil one bucket at a time. Klehm’s Humble Pile, a local do-it-yourself human waste composting project, introduces a backyard alternative to the machine-churning, power-draining waste-processing facilities tucked away in remote locations. “I’m not treating it chemically. I trust microorganisms to do it for me,” Klehm says.
  

  Free Urea Based Fertilizer Human urine makes an excellent high nitrogen liquid fertiliser for most plants. Dilute it 10 to 1 and pour it over and or round fast growing plants once a week; like vegetables, Green manure crops and sugar cane. Indeed just about anything that you want to push along rapid green growth

  USING URINE AS PLANT FOOD TO MAKE PLANTS BLOOM – FREE FERTILIZER The YouTube video that got me all excited in the first place!

  Piss Poor, a video about the EcoSan Toilet system, recycling urine for agricultural use in… where else, Africa!

The tomato that keeps on giving

debra at 19:01 | Comments (23) | post to del.icio.us

23 Comments »

1. We need a winter post……! ?

   Comment by Jeff Pool — December 11, 2010 @ 20:25

2. Please don’t tell my boyfriend, but I just poured pee on our plants.
   hehehehehe

   Comment by Joanna Swan — March 1, 2011 @ 5:22

3. DILUTE DILUTE! DILUTE! DILUTE!
   1:10 or 1:5 TEST! TEST! TEST!

   Pee is an awesome fertiliser. I can’t believe we don’t harvest all of it all of the time. What a terrible waste.

   My boyfriend is also squeamish about pee – and he never donates! He thinks that the fact that he drinks beer will somehow harm the plants.

   DILUTE! DILUTE! DILUTE! DILUTE!
   1:10 or 1:5 TEST! TEST! TEST!

   Comment by Debra — March 1, 2011 @ 9:31

4. Dilution occurred! Thanks for the tip, no root burning alllowed. Testing to follow. So excited.

   Comment by Joanna Swan — March 2, 2011 @ 11:37

5. I’ll be saving pee this year….. Normally I just chuck it on the compost bin, don’t know why I didn’t think to water the plants with it……..

   Comment by Bethann — April 21, 2011 @ 1:15

6. Wasting pee is a thing of the past.
   DILUTE DILUTE DILUTE!

   Comment by debra — April 21, 2011 @ 10:27

7. What’s Happening i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve found It absolutely useful and it has helped me out loads. I hope to give a contribution & assist other customers like its helped me. Great job.

   Comment by zimerovertover — October 3, 2026 @ 0:30

8. I was looking through some of your posts on this internet site and I think this site is real informative ! Keep putting up.

   Comment by lgowin99 — October 12, 2026 @ 3:11

9. Some truly interesting information, well written and generally user genial.

   Comment by sbobet88 — October 12, 2026 @ 19:30

10. Appreciate it for this terrific post, I am glad I observed this web site on yahoo.

    Comment by protese capilar frontal masculina de cabelo humano em sorocaba — October 13, 2026 @ 11:39

11. I like this blog its a master peace ! Glad I observed this on google .

    Comment by lgowin99 — October 14, 2026 @ 8:29

12. I discovered your blog site on google and check a few of your early posts. Continue to keep up the very good operate. I just additional up your RSS feed to my MSN News Reader. Seeking forward to reading more from you later on!…

    Comment by website resmi naga138 pg — October 14, 2026 @ 11:57

13. ???? ?? ? ??? ? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??, ?? ?? ??? ?????. ???? ??, ?? ?? ? ???, ?? ? ????? ?? ?? ??? ?????.

    Comment by ???? ?? — October 14, 2026 @ 19:44

14. ??? ??????? ??? ??? ??, ??·?? ?? ??, ??? ?? ?? ? ?? ?? ??? ?????. ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??? ?? ?????.

    Comment by ??????? — October 15, 2026 @ 2:23

15. ??????? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ?? ??, ?? ??? ?????. ??·??·??·???·?? ? ??? ?? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??, ??·?? ?? ??? ?????.

    Comment by ??????? — October 15, 2026 @ 5:58

16. The subsequent time I read a weblog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as a lot as this one. I mean, I do know it was my option to learn, however I really thought youd have something attention-grabbing to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you can fix if you happen to werent too busy searching for attention.

    Comment by Andar Bahar casino game — October 15, 2026 @ 6:06

17. Excellent blog here! Also your site loads up fast! What host are you using? Can I get your affiliate link to your host? I wish my site loaded up as fast as yours lol

    Comment by alluvi labs and alluvi — October 15, 2026 @ 15:13

18. Neat blog! Is your theme custom made or did you download it from somewhere? A design like yours with a few simple adjustements would really make my blog stand out. Please let me know where you got your design. Thank you

    Comment by situs slot — October 15, 2026 @ 20:00

19. Howdy! I know this is kinda off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this website? I’m getting tired of WordPress because I’ve had problems with hackers and I’m looking at alternatives for another platform. I would be fantastic if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.

    Comment by slot gacor hari ini — October 16, 2026 @ 0:28

20. Howdy! Someone in my Facebook group shared this site with us so I came to give it a look. I’m definitely loving the information. I’m book-marking and will be tweeting this to my followers! Great blog and excellent design and style.

    Comment by slot gacor hari ini — October 16, 2026 @ 3:33

21. Usually I don’t read article on blogs, but I wish to say that this write-up very forced me to try and do it! Your writing style has been surprised me. Thanks, quite nice post.

    Comment by slot gacor hari ini — October 16, 2026 @ 12:19

22. Unquestionably believe that that you said. Your favorite reason seemed to be on the internet the easiest factor to take note of. I say to you, I certainly get irked even as people consider worries that they just do not recognize about. You controlled to hit the nail upon the highest and also outlined out the whole thing with no need side effect , people can take a signal. Will likely be again to get more. Thanks

    Comment by Certified ethical hacker (CEH) — October 16, 2026 @ 12:48

23. Hi, Neat post. There’s a problem with your site in web explorer, may check thisK IE still is the marketplace chief and a huge section of other folks will pass over your wonderful writing due to this problem.

    Comment by slot — October 17, 2026 @ 9:04