The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

Collecting urine for fertilizer

Jug of urineI know that it hasn't been that long since you choked your way through a lunchtime series on urine, but Liquid Gold got me so fired up that I started a slew of experiments.  I apologize in advance to those of you with weak stomachs, but I'm going to subject you to another week of urine ramblings.

First up --- how to collect that pee.  Since we don't have an indoor bathroom, Mark had been peeing into a milk jug for months before I got obsessed with using urine as fertilizer --- it was just simpler (and warmer) than going outside.  So I didn't have a hard time talking him into giving up his liquid gold for my experiments, though I did ask if he might like a fancy, homemade urinal.  Mark rolled his eyes and told me the gallon jug worked just fine.

Mark did make one slight modification to his milk jug --- he printed "DO NOT DRINK!" in large letters around the rim of the container.  During cold spells, we often imbibe water out of cleaned out milk jugs (filled during warm spells), so the warning label is a good precaution.  In households with more regular running water, you wouldn't even need that.

Fund your journey back to the land with a niche invention.



This post is part of our Urine in the Garden lunchtime series.  Read all of the entries:





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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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