Our Urine is high in nitrogen, moderate in phosphorus and low in potassium. This can act as an excellent high nutrient liquid fertiliser in our gardens
We need to remember that Urine contains a creatin level of salts – sometimes quite a lot. Due to these salt and high nitrogen levels, Urine should generally be diluted to a ratio of 10:1 before use on garden crops. More significantly a dilution of 20:1 is appropriate for more tender plants, seedlings and potted plants, which are more susceptible to salt build-up.
Fresh Urine can have a pH of between 5 to 9 subjects to your diet, but it tends to move toward 6.5/7 as it ages and breaks down once used on our gardens.
In a healthy person, Urine is sterile. If you are on medication, don’t fertilise with your pee as that can carry into your garden and your plants. Also, some things to remember is that if you have an infection your Urine is not fit for garden use.
Being such an underutilised resource, it contains up to 80% of all the nutrients a plant requires.
Using Urine as a Compost Accelerator
With your compost pile not activating or starting to break down it could be something as simple as too much carbon and not enough nitrogen on in the pile. Directly depositing this precious resource on the pile can start to speed things up and add moisture. Incorporating Urine into a compost pile is a great way of cycling this resource to stable it from a soluble fertiliser to a stable one to be held in the soil
Always remember that dilution is the key.
Dilute Urine at a 10:1 ratio and apply to the root zone of your plants every two weeks.
And if you have a high salt diet, remember that you need to dilute it to a 1:20 ration so not to burn or salt up your garden.
Deep Mulch Direct Application for Forest Garden
If you are using a thick mulch of high carbon woody material in and around your woody perennials and fruit trees you can apply your Urine straight onto the mulch, absorbing and moderating the straight shot of nitrogen in your pee.
What to read next?
Indoor Plants
By Victoria Holder As the popularity of gardening increased last year, growing our own food to become more resilient, so did the popularity of...
The Chicken Apothecary
Responsibility shifts to that of the intervener. Out of the many different design principles that I have read or been taught over the years, this...
Soil Air Porosity
Rain. Something we have not seen in a while, and it is glorious to see.We are enjoying every moment as it falls from the sky and watching our...
