peeing on my veggies
Posted by LucidAnne on Oct 18, 2007 · Member since Jun 2006 · 1564 posts
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070922/note15.asp
its the new (? :-\) way to fertilize?
interesting.....
The World's Largest Collection of Vegetarian Recipes
wellll, people living on sustainable co-ops use "humanure" as fertilizer. and when you think about it, every time you flush the toilet you are throwing away two precious resources: clean water, and human waste, which is a perfectly good fertilizer
For a minute there, I thought your neighbour's kids had found a new way to create havoc in your garden.... ;D
LOL adds B12!
Excuse me while I go out back and pee in my garden. :o
I've read a couple of books on composting, and solid human waste is typically avoided because of the dangerous bacteria that it hosts. But pee has been known for years to be an excellent addition to the compost pile because it's so nitrogen rich. I don't know about it increasing the size of your cabbages....sounds suspect.
I've read a couple of books on composting, and solid human waste is typically avoided because of the dangerous bacteria that it hosts. But pee has been known for years to be an excellent addition to the compost pile because it's so nitrogen rich. I don't know about it increasing the size of your cabbages....sounds suspect.
I'm sorry...but I don't think I could eat any vegetables if I knew they'd been peed on. The mental image is enough to make me sick.
You don't pee on the veggies - you store urine and dump it on your compost pile (which is usually a year old before you use it) for nitrogen! And I'm not saying I do this - I don't have a compost pile or a garden :-\ ....yet!
In "wilderness" survival situations, pee is used for tons of things: all kinds of stings and bites because of its sanitizing qualities :D
solid human waste is typically avoided because of the dangerous bacteria that it hosts.
I don't get it, isn't cow waste a host for dangerous bacteria too? What makes it "better" than human waste?
solid human waste is typically avoided because of the dangerous bacteria that it hosts.
I don't get it, isn't cow waste a host for dangerous bacteria too? What makes it "better" than human waste?
I'm not entirely certain, but believe it has something to do with their digestive system. All kinds of manure has to be composted - it can't go straight on the plants 'cause of the ammonia, but human waste (and cat/dog waste too) has boatloads of parasites, germies, etc. The more I think about it, the more it's gotta be that we only have one stomach. Cows, horses, goates, sheep have rumen (am I getting my Michael Pollack right?), and multiple tummies that break their grass down differently.
Anyone else smarter about gardening than I am?
I think it also has something to do with herbivore manure being better fertilizer than omnivore/carnivore manure.
But human excrement is used as fertilizer! I have friends who use a composting toilet and I've seen them at a few public washrooms as well.
You don't pee on the veggies - you store urine
um, dink, what do you keep in that "guest room" of yours?? :-\
volacious...your friends use composting toilets? i didnt realize it was able to be used as gardening fodder. i think the public composting restrooms are just meant that they naturally decompose, through no chems, but i dont think they "harvest" the waste. but, i dunno....
i would be worried about what would be excreted by the human body, in terms of meds and drugs, esp.
i know that by the time compost is meant to be used, its no longer crap. it shouldnt smell, the bacteria has broken it down....but what about synthetic drugs and such? how would we know that stuff has been neutralized?
that would be totally GM foods.... pooping out steriods and antidepressants and then feeding it to our tomatoes. ;D we could cure global hunger.
Human manure needs a higher temperature at which to break down and kill all the germs off in. Which is why only "professionals" who have such an extensive compost pile where the temperature will get high enough use it. A small, average compost pile will never generate the heat necessary to break down human manure and have it be safe to use.
I'm so excited for moving to CA January. My partner went ahead to set up camp, but when we were both there we found the cutest cottage for rent. With (and this is a big deal for someone like me who is gung ho about ecology and sustainability) a self composting toilet!
The waste won't be used for manure, though. It just composts back into the ground, naturally.
I've never heard of the pee thing ... quite interesting. I always thought it was good to pee around your garden to keep the animals away, lol. ;D
The human waste goes into the juniper brush and that's the last I want to hear about it lol.
OMG! Wellllll--the article did have quite a bit of *yuck* to it, but I gotta say, reading your guys respones made my day *it was a real bad one :(* thanks for the giggle !
Volacious...your friends use composting toilets? i didnt realize it was able to be used as gardening fodder. i think the public composting restrooms are just meant that they naturally decompose, through no chems, but i dont think they "harvest" the waste. but, i dunno....
I may've misunderstood when my friend was explaining thr system to me, but I'm pretty sure he said they would end up with a small amount of compost as an end product. I'll double check and get back to everyone.
The "earth closet" or self-composting toilet has been around since Victorian England, and yes, it does produce useable compost as an end product. It is, as Volacious says, a small amount after all the breakdown takes place. Nobody weighs their body's waste (I hope) but if you did you'd realise that each "use" doesn't produce all that much waste per capita, so after you break that little down, it's less.
I thought this post was going to be about how someone messed up your day...hee hee I thought this was a vegan way of saying the old phrase "who peed on your post toasties?"! lol I thought it was a creative rephrasing so I had to see what someone did to you. I didn't even think you were literal.