I've heard human urine is good for lemon trees. Will the addition of human urine help to alleviate alkaline beach soils(which I just happen to live on)? If it can be used to make soil (actually dry water repellant sand in my case) more acidic is there any health concerns? Regards to all.
Posted by Mont William, Jackie French in her book 'Soil Food' (Aird Books, Melbourne 1995) says this, among other things, about human urine: 'It's safe to use, with a couple of reservations' [the first is the social acceptability of emptying your chamber pot near the neighbour's fence, but forget that!]. 'Secondly, and especially with the average Australian high-salt diet, if used over a long period of time there may be a substantial buildup of sodium salt in the soil, which is harmful to both soil and plants. Thirdly, human urine can spread some disease. in particular the snail-carried parasitical disease schistosomiasis (not a problem in Australia) and possibly also hepatitis or bladder infections. Where the donor does not have a bladder infection, however, human urine is generally reasonably clean until it hits the soil - and a good deal safer than, say, spit'. She has a lot more info about it, but in a nutshell she emphasises using FRESH urine straight from the source, diluted 1 part to twenty parts water. Old urine will burn anything it touches and therefore 'makes an excellent herbicide for shallow-rooted plants like bindii and couch grass'. I hope this is some help. Mont Sydney
Posted by William Blakers: Thank you Mont for your reply. I will try to hunt down Jackie French's book. Regards Bill
Posted by Mont: Bill I bought mine from the Permaculture Research Institute (this site) while doing a Permaculture Design Certificate course there, so if you can't find the book elsewhere you might like to email Geoff and Sindhu and see if they still have any for sale. It was about 20 bucks. Mont
