Psychological cons of Urine in the garden?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by sweetpea, Aug 26, 2010.

  1. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    Lumbuck, it's a good thing to think outside the box and try to see new ways of doing things, but it's also good to actually do the things we think of, not just assume that they ought to work because of how cool and green they might be. Actually doing them usually changes everything. When reality sets in, and all the practical things we didn't realize were also part of what has to happen change something from a doable project into a complicated, exhausting project, we often must change our original assumptions.

    There is so much chemistry and biology involved with plants and soil biology it can boggle the mind, and we can't do Permaculture without understanding some of it. When scientists write scientific articles they must test their hypotheses and findings over and over and over under every possible circumstance that could make it crash, trying to find out why it won't work, and have it stand up to that standard. Then have their peers, with the same professional training, try to crash it as well. Not until then are they allowed to publish in a reputable publication what they've found. Stay skeptical, and do what you say :)
     
  2. Lumbuck Thornton

    Lumbuck Thornton Junior Member

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    Thankyou Sweetpea,
    Gradually making some progress. Got rid of the weeds in the garden and might talk to a local permaculture designer about some of the practicalities to do some experiments on a small scale first and build a few prototypes in my spare time. Just need a few tools.
     
  3. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    experiments? see a designer?? just do it, it is all common sense, work with what you have keep it simple.

    len
     
  4. Pakanohida

    Pakanohida Junior Member

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    Agreed, I am poor as a Dicken's urchin sometimes and I just started with zone "0" and am slowly working outwards.
     
  5. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    yes start with the mind i call it 00 then a house that is going to deliver cheaply 0, then everything else zoneless fits where it is needed or best orientation on the block. we are heading back to rural, still going to build a house like we had before not expesive and keeps us comfy.

    len
     
  6. Lumbuck Thornton

    Lumbuck Thornton Junior Member

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    Thankyou for all the encouragement.

    One of the other aspects to urine we are missing is temperature. This body heat contains valuable energy in cool climates that is worth making good use of in cool climates.
    You don't want a flushing toilet or shower water to travel great distances in pipes or into a normal septic tank or the heat is wasted. Ideally the fixtures would be only a short distance from a wormfarm septic tank so the heat was not lost but transfered to the compost pile which is also generating its own heat to drive lots of microbes and composting life forms to make the most out of the wastes. The warmed, microbe rich fresh water is then passed on to the root zone of plants if the wormfarm is elevated enough to drain straight into absorption trenches. If these are in mounded garden beds then the wormfarm has to be in an above ground tank and the fixtures have to be even higher. There are good grounds for having toilets up at almost a first floor level to provide for this enhanced processing of the waste streams with delivery to a garden without having for a pump to automatically activate when stagnation might have occurred and heat lost. Even a kitchen sink and the floor might have to be raised another metre of so in order to access an elevated wormfarm septic tank. A minor inconvenience when you consider the savings on energy and pump replacement costs.

    There are some critical design issues that I don't think are being properly considered about the design of Zone 0 that could be very dependant on design and orientation of the other Zones that are not being properly considered to their full potential. The major new avenue is consideration of breaking off part of the zone 0 fixed building and moving it out through the garden to follow the sun (or a void it) each day.

    You can fiddle around with buckets but there are practical hygiene and health realities that need to be considered in western societies which don't necessarily have it right either but there is a new smarter design I think that utilises the best of all worlds. There may be some food crops this worm water can be directed to but careful design and choices need to be made and it may be easier just to direct this water in two rail side plastic arching trenches that deliver water to the root systems of shade tunnel vegetation where it is used to generate more transpiration and evapourative cooling. Maybe pumpkins could access this with the vine suspended on a tunnel trallis.

    I just think that if we used the needs of Zone 1 and 2 in addition to our own human needs to help shape zone 0, then we could end up a long way ahead economically, resource wise and time wise. Elevating the fixtures in Zone 0 to higher than normal makes them a little more effort to access but are not problematic if there is upstairs accommodation or other purposes such as water tanks or windmill frames further above. Likewise the needs of a new type of Zone 0 would be helped by some different configurations in Zone 1 + 2.
    (Desired, Shade, Windshelter, Aesthetics, Bird Noises, Bird Viewing). Check my other threads under "lumbuck" if you would like to more about these design ideas.
     
  7. Lumbuck Thornton

    Lumbuck Thornton Junior Member

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    Maybe I should be calling it "The Carbon Smugglers!" and could update it a bit!
     
  8. Grahame

    Grahame Senior Member

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    It's pretty cheap and efficient to piss on the compost heap Lumbuck. Or the lemon tree for that matter.

    Further to that, a lemon tree can give shade, shelter, bird song, Aesthetics etc. And an upstairs dunny doesn't grow awesome fruit. I'm just sayin'
     
  9. Michaelangelica

    Michaelangelica Junior Member

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    Collecting and reusing urine to grow crops may raise some eyebrows. But as the negative consequences of modern day sanitation systems become more significant, so does the relevance of research and innovation in sustainable sanitation.

    Modern day sanitation systems (in the form of piped-water and toilets) have well-deserved recognition as “the greatest medical advance in the last 150 years”, for their critical contribution to public health in cities. But they also waste and misplace valuable resources.

    They require large quantities of (mostly drinking quality) flushing water. This particular concern has led to more water-efficient toilet designs and “recycled water” pipe networks – but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Concerns about the looming scarcities of essential agricultural nutrients such as phosphorus are on the rise, even as our sewers carry phosphorus and other nutrients from the food we eat and discharge them to aquatic ecosystems where they can cause eutrophication and algal blooms.

    In addition, the increasing consumption of pharmaceuticals and personal care products accompanying our rising affluence has led to the presence of these endocrine-disrupting substances in our wastewater, and as micro pollutants that persist in our waterways. Processes to remove these substances from wastewater are very costly. And although nutrient removal is provided at our inland sewage treatment plants discharging to rivers, it is seldom provided at our coastal plants.
    Pee harvesting

    Innovation towards more sustainable sanitation systems that demand less resources, enable nutrient reuse and protect aquatic ecosystems are therefore urgently needed.
    MORE
    https://theconversation.edu.au/rein...oilet - urine diversion where its needed most
     
  10. eco4560

    eco4560 New Member

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    Yeah - it was about time this thread got resurrected for another go!
     
  11. Grasshopper

    Grasshopper Senior Member

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    Young apple tree doesnt like too much urine(hope I havent killed it),neither does the young Avo,citrus and bananas cant get enough.
     
  12. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    yep always worth another round, especially coming into at least dry start to wet season or very later february start if we are lucky, if not drought?

    all our second hand water and urine added together to make up volume going to plantings of ll sorts, no other way to keep mostly all new plantings on new land alive until the next big wet oh! i dunno might be a decade hence again.

    len
     
  13. helenlee

    helenlee Junior Member

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    What dilution of pee to water are you using Len?
     
  14. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    it does not need to be diluted i do so the spread it around, helen.

    but generally 10 to 20% about. it gets mixed with value added gray water.

    len
     
  15. Lumbuck Thornton

    Lumbuck Thornton Junior Member

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    My guess is that urine is also one of the bonus components of wormfarm wastewater that passes through with the greywater and worm castings (worm poo made out of the materials worms have grown and devoured from solids, weeds, paper and other materials deposited in the wormfarm).
     

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