I should update my advocacy for my urine as fruit tree fertilizer. I’ve stopped applying it to bearing age apple trees for fear of providing excess potassium. Apparently this can lead to corking and black rots in susceptible varieties, especially Honey Crisp and Jonagold, but I’ve also had issues with Pink Lady, Braebern and Newtown Pippin. It seems to interfere with calcium absorption. I will use it for all other fruit trees, including younger apples.
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Thank you for the update Alan, I have been following this thread. I started my very own “storage system” (a 5 gallon used DEF fluid bucket with a handle on the bottom from tractor supply) in the basement bathroom closet last night! My wife rarely uses that bathroom and it’s close by to where I’ve been fiddling with soil mixes, starting cuttings and seeds, and getting ready to graft. It’s a plant friendly zone down there right now.
On another note - and very much relating to this topic, I asked my wife’s cousin about the urine application as he studies engineering for waste management. He is working on the following study: Princeton researchers receive $2.5 million to advance the science of urban food sustainability
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Thanks for creating this thread
I just can’t resist trying to contribute something to this conversation. I don’t know why.
This is a picture of a building in its original context at Fort Larned (1866—1884), KS, historical site. It was a duplex residence for officers’ families. There is a shared well (under a canopy) and a privy, which is unacceptably close by modern standards. I don’t know how the inhabitants made this work, but I have a few guesses as to how they lived.
No. 1: You have to buy into the fact that men didn’t use the privy for that! There’s a reason that outhouses were decorated with moon signs. While everyone used the privy for no. 2, only women were allowed to use it for no. 1. Even in town, men would go to the alley or behind a stable to relieve themselves during the day. There were institutional buildings such as courthouses, churches, and schools where men were confined for long periods of time, and these had separate privies for each sex. The ones for men were decorated by sunbursts. In general, male home owners, though, preferred not to contribute to the volume contained in their own privy, which might cause it to have to be pumped out more frequently. In an era where horse-powered conveyance was universal, the stench of male urination was only a minor contribution to the overall stench of city living. All that changed when electric power made indoor plumbing commonplace and after horses were displaced by automobiles.
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Also, I should say that I, myself, have imbibed at establishments that had no boys’ room. Fondly I recall Tillie’s Bar in Beechwood, WI, which is no more, and especially the Jersey Lilly in Ingomar, MT.