I.P. Freely - On The Organic Cabbages by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 10.31.07 Food & Health In today's issue of the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry a report from researchers at the University of Kuopio in Finland finds that human urine is a great organic fertilizer for plants, especially cabbages. What makes this post great for today is the fact that the diligent Finnish researchers collected the urine for their experiments by going door to door in the neighborhood. How's that for trick or treat! Then they doused the fresh pee (urine is sterile and contains nitrogen) on rows of cabbages, with a control row of conventionally fertilized cabbage. The researchers found that the peed-on cabbages grew slightly faster and had slightly better biomass than the controls. But lest you think this is all a big joke - the researchers made the cabbages into sauerkraut, and found there was absolutely no difference in taste between the test cabbages and the control cabbages. Especially in poorer parts of the world, the researchers concluded, the ancient art of using urine as a free fertilizer should be revived, and might also increase the use of composting toilets (where the #1 and #2 go to separate bins) to help easily gather the urine. The researchers also said use of urine as a fertilizer is increasing in Finland. Is anyone peeing in their garden?
Human urine will also work to get rid of ant beds. I don't know if it kills them (mostly the queen) or if they just say, "The hell with this", and move. But they're gone, takes a couple days, but no pesticides. If you do self apply human urine, spread it around. It's VERY high in nitrogen and thus can "burn" plants. Peace, poor_old_dad
Thank you, poor old dad. Ants seem to like my garden so maybe this will help with that. Though I think if I start doing this I will apply it in a less exposed fashion. How often should one apply this fertilizer?
Y'know, someone told us that trick for ants a LOOONG time ago too. My dad would go out well after dark & "fertilize" the gigantic army-ant mounds. And within a few weeks they left! We thought it was the nastiest thing ever back then, (please forgive me... I was 8 and this is my DAD we're talking about!) but it DID work love, mom
Urine is pure Urea, it's hot it can kill things like ants, but it's also high in nitrogen content. I am not sure I am all that keen on peeing on cabages though. Not the ones meant for my dinner anyway.
Another consideration should be whether or not contaminates, diseases from human urine can be transmitted through plant produce...anyone done a study?
For all it is worth I have yet to burn anything fertalizing this way. I think it takes a bit more than the ocasional douse of er...fertalizer to burn some stuff. I would think urea would work good to make your brown compost go a little quicker. It would be a yellow instead of green source of nitrogen in the compost.
With so many fine organic fetilizers on the market, I'm not real keen on using human urine. It DOES make an excellent deer and rabbit repellant though. Just take a wizz around the garden. Lay down a perimeter. x
One's urine will keep a lot of animals away. They smell and know its your territory and they will back down. I dont know you guy's preferences, but if you ever do hidden grow of Cannabis in the woods... piss around the perimeter it keeps the animals away.
