From Toilets to Tomatoes: Urine's Secret Role in Gardening
Getting personal with community science
4.13.23
Dear Mom,
I’m writing to tell you about this class I just took about using urine to fertilize your plants and gardens and crops. But then, WOW, Sis sent me a photo of your baby pineapple plant, and I AM BLOWN away. I can’t believe you got this colorful little fruit coming up from some random discarded pineapple crown you just threw in the dirt last year. You and your green thumb.
But wait, what if you’d used urine as a fertilizer? Haha. It sounds crazy, but I took an internet class about it this week. Yes, Mom, they are using human urine. There’s this environment company up in Vermont, and they’ve been fertilizing the crops and gardens in the area with urine for years—ten years, in fact. Sweet corn, tomatoes, basil, you name it, they put diluted pee on it. My teacher for the class said, “That sweet corn is the best ever.”
Anyway, you and your green thumb, you wouldn’t need it. But I thought you’d like the creativity of it all, being a creative person yourself. I sat down and read up on the history of using human urine as fertilizer. And yes, farmers and growers have been using it since ancient times. It is NOT just a Vermont hippie thing. Lately, regular news stories about the practice have appeared in USA Today, The Guardian and NBC. They are all saying “get over the ewwww factor. Give it a try.”
Anyway, in urine class I was convinced that it is good fertilizer. Definite yes on that point. Think about how farms use cow manure and chicken droppings. No telling what kind of bacteria and germs in there. Nobody blinks one eye. Another thing our teacher said about urine being popular in Vermont: “We have special urine-collection portable toilets we rent out. They are popular at outdoor weddings.” HA!
That’s all for now. Again, love-love that sweet baby pineapple, thanks for sharing the photos. See you soon to celebrate your 91 years! Love, Pam
Going for that Garden Gold
As a community scientist focused on Georgia, I keep a close eye on SciStarter, the website that is home base for citizen science and community science projects in the U.S. I identify with and want to highlight this simple belief from their site: “Citizen science enables people from all walks of life to advance scientific research.” Right on! The alignment is perfect for what I’m trying to do here with The Everyday Scientist, and with my strong focus on opportunities to help the state of Georgia.
Throw some digital confetti because April is Citizen Science Month! I’ve been visiting SciStarter more than usual this month to see what’s on the event page. When I saw the webinar, “Urine in the Garden: How to use urine fertilizer in the home garden,” I had to sign up. Before the webinar, I did some research and found out the practice is not that uncommon around the world. Right now, over in France they are building an eco-community with many sustainable features including urine diverting toilets that feed in to a whole tidy system of saving urine to fertilize the community’s gardens and landscaping.
Julia Cavicchi, education director at Rich Earth, led the webinar I took. She began by telling us that a “flush and forget” mentality exists in America and elsewhere, yet there’s a lot of water wasted down our toilets as well as valuable nutrients from our bodies. “Sixty percent of the water in our homes goes to flushing the toilets,” she added. Her words made me think back to a vacation I took to Mexico more than thirty years ago. “If it’s yellow, let it mellow,” was the advice we got everywhere. Cavicchi told us that some human waste and nutrients, even after going through water treatment plans, still may contribute to harmful algae blooms in lakes and along ocean beaches.
Cavicchi clarified the differences between a commercial farm operation using urine as fertilizer verses a home gardener using it. Basically, it comes down to pasteurization and sterilization which the farms do because the pee incoming is crowd-sourced, and urine from multiple sources mean that you don’t necessary know what you are getting, bacteria-wise and health-wise, from donors.
“Do the farmers who sell urine-fertilized produce at the farmers market tell people they fertilize with urine?” I asked.
Answer no, no big deal, Cavicchi says. “But sure, if someone asked, a farmer would share what her or his fertilizer is. Cow manure or whatever. Most people, happy to get some beautiful tomatoes or whatever, don’t care.” My research of a half-dozen stories (see some links below) from around the world show that crop yield and plant health is markedly increased with urine fertilization. This story from 2020 is typical: Malawi: Turning urine into a source of wealth.
As for the home gardener, Cavicchi said using urine to grow plants, either ornamental landscape plants and trees or in a vegetable garden, is easier than for a farm but still takes some effort. She encouraged us to consider it. I remembered a quote I’d read: “If you don’t like the tree-hugger vibe of saving your urine to fertilize, maybe you’ll appreciate the bigger crop yield, and the money saved by not buying all that fertilizer.” There is no standard rule telling you how much to dilute your liquid gold, but most recommendations suggest a 1:3 to 1:5 urine-to-water ratio.
Home urine collectors can buy or make a collection device, using the male or female shapes as needed. Using a regular funnel, you then pour the urine into a closed container. Closed containers are important because of (a) smell control and (b) nitrogen security. Nitrogen is the good stuff you’ll want to keep, and if you leave urine exposed to air it loses much of its nitrogen content. While simple in concept, the Rich Earth people realize this could all seem like a little too much effort at first. So, they’ve created How to make a DIY urine collector to help. Also, Etsy is in the swim of things. Go to Etsy to purchase low-cost urine collection devices for the home. Enjoy shopping, no need to be shy.
As for urine collection and community science, Rich Earth has created this simple form for collecting data. Anecdotal feedback is also welcome at the “Urine My Garden” Facebook page. Enjoy these answers to Rich Earth’s recent inquiry: “Do you talk about using urine fertilizer in your garden?”
“We live in an HOA so we keep it quiet and apply at night with a sprinkling can.”
“I let the garden speak for itself and respond to inquiries.”
“Yes. It is an acceptable practice in our circles.”
“I tell some people. Some find it gross, some find it exciting.”
“Since reading a NYT article I am definitely starting to talk about it to family and friends. Reactions so far? Mixed. Everything from that’s gross to cool.”
“People came here to see the garden because it is so abundant. People asked what we did and we shared our urine story.”
Urine news:
USA Today. Pee on your plants.
France 24 News. Can pee help save the world?
New York Times. Meet the Peecyclers.
Food & Wine. We’re facing a fertilizer shortage and could be flushing the solution down the toilet.
Coming up:
My husband and I are headed on a field trip this weekend, going to the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest to try to make some grassland observations for the Georgia Grasslands Initiative. I’ve heard it is challenging to get pictures of individual grass blades. Plus it is supposed to rain, so. . .
Earth Day is celebrated all month and the actual day of the event is Saturday, April 22. No matter what your age, try doing something special for the day. Then, tell others about it. There is an Earth Day Action Toolkit here at the official Earth Day website.
Thanks for reading. I’d love your comments.
I’m envisioning you and Fred collecting urine!!! 😂