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

Wood ash and urine fertilizer?

yummy yellow small onesBoing Boing has an interesting post on a National Geographic news article that reports on a recent round of tests to see how productive a mix of human urine and wood ash would be for tomatoes.

The plants fertilized this way yielded 4 times as much fruit as non fertilized plants, and bore a significant increase in the nutrient magnesium.

I would be a little concerned about the long term salt build up that may occur with this method and need more information before I try something as risky as mixing a salty substance with our topsoil.



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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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how would it be different than peeing in straw, in terms of adding salts to the soil?
Comment by brett Sat Oct 3 00:48:06 2009
I'd say it'd be pretty much equivalent. Have you tried peeing on straw and had no problems with salts?
Comment by anna Sat Oct 3 07:59:35 2009
Ive peed in leaves, but not enough to make a significant impact. I'm interested to learn more about this
Comment by brett Sat Oct 3 12:16:11 2009
Me too! I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for some definitive information and will definitely report anything I find.
Comment by anna Sat Oct 3 15:10:33 2009





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