December 5, 2017

"Should you pee on your lawn?"

No, not directly. But it would be a good idea to pee into a watering can, add water, and sprinkle the diluted urine around.

Ray Weil, professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland says: "There is certainly no need for a suburban family to ever buy any fertilizer... Diluted urine grows wonderful vegetables."

52 comments:

Tyrone Slothrop said...

Peas.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I wonder if this was part of Rand Paul's lawn-care regimen.

mockturtle said...

My dog takes care of this.

urbane legend said...

Suburban family, no need to pee directly on your lawn.

Then I guess no plans for an Olympic team event.

tcrosse said...

You could still write your name in the snow.

Phil 314 said...

"My dog takes care of this."

Then why, when we had a lawn in Denver, and had some brown spots someone told us it could be the dog?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Phil 3:14 said...

Then why, when we had a lawn in Denver, and had some brown spots someone told us it could be the dog?

Because it was the dog. Pee is too concentrated, it needs to be diluted. Mockturtle has managed to train her dog to pee into a watering can, then dilute it with water before spreading it over the lawn. Very smart dog.

Ipso Fatso said...

I think I will pass on eating at Ray Weil's house.

Henry said...

Pee in the compost bin.

chuck said...

Reminds me of opening a closet containing a pair of Eskimo mukluks made of sealskin cured with urine. Gave me a whole new perspective on what living in an igloo would have been like ...

Achilles said...

So a professor says something stupid to get attention. Neat.

Expat(ish) said...

Where I used to live in NC, this would earn you a citation from the Dept. of Public Health. There are pretty strict regulations about re-use of grey and black water, and that certainly includes human waste use.

-XC

Amexpat said...

Do it and your in the lawn.

Quaestor said...

My dog takes care of this.

Dogs have evolved to conserve water, so their pee has a heavy concentration of nitrogen compared to normal human urine, thus the brown spots on the lawn. Overdosing fertilizer is counter-productive.

Potassium nitrate. Beautiful flowers, tasty and nutritious veg, and loud booms. During the War for Southern Independence, gentlewomen saved their micturitions for gunpowder production.

lonetown said...

Remember the PBS Master Gardener who made all of his own applications. Pee was in everyone of them. He even had aged pee. I bet the guy didn't urinate in a toilet for the entire taping of the show. Unfortunately I forget his name.

tim in vermont said...

I've been doing it wrong.

Expat(ish) said...

@ignornace - if the dog is turning the lawn brown, then the dog isn't fully hydrated.

Remember to leave the toilet seats up.

-XC

RichardJohnson said...

My definition of living in the country: where you can pee on your lawn without getting the neighbors upset- as they live too far away to see you.

Big Mike said...

We annually buy Shake-Away granulated fox urine to sprinkle around the garden. Does a good job keeping the rabbits out. Can be purchased from Amazon via the Althouse portal.

@Meade, if you see a downside, please weigh in.

Quaestor said...

Reminds me of opening a closet containing a pair of Eskimo mukluks made of sealskin cured with urine. Gave me a whole new perspective on what living in an igloo would have been like ...

It wasn't just Eskimos and seal skins. Historically, urine must be one of the more useful substances. Since time immemorial it was used in the production of leather and hides, which necessarily was a pretty stinky enterprise. It is not for nothing that the name of lowest caste in the Hindu social strata, pariah, derives from Tamil paṛaiyar, — “drummer”. In pre-Revolutionary Paris there was a designated neighborhood or arrondissement set aside for tanners and other leather-related trades. Though within the customs wall it was about as far from the Hôtel de Ville as one could get. During the Revolution that area was used for the disposal of executed aristocrats in purpose-dug lime pits. Marie Antoinette's remains, what ever they may be, rest somewhere along the Street of the Saddle Makers. Urine was also used to bleach wool and linen to a fashionable spotless white rather than their nature gray. If you have anyone called Fuller in your lineage, some of your ancestors had a very smelly job. Among the Romans urine was often used as mouthwash.

John Nowak said...

I was getting ready to do this when I remembered that I don't have a lawn. Now I have a watering can that needs to be washed.

Earnest Prole said...

I remember Penelope Trunk (remember her?) being shocked when her farmer husband had to explain to her that inside the farmhouse there was only one place to pee, but outside you could pee anywhere. I knew then the marriage was doomed.

Quaestor said...

We annually buy Shake-Away granulated fox urine to sprinkle around the garden. Does a good job keeping the rabbits out. Can be purchased from Amazon via the Althouse portal.

Back in the Eighties and Nineties on any given Saturday from early November (typically Saint Hubert's Day) until the Saturday before Maundy Thursday, Quaestor could be found riding to hounds — braided mane, pinck coat, top boots, and all. Since the local farmers didn't want us to trample down their crops our pack most often followed a drag rather than a live fox. To the lay the trail someone had to drag a towel soaked in fox piss for miles through woods and fields early, early, dark o'clock in the morning. I never got that job, thankfully, but I was always curious where and how they came by that vulpine pee-pee.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Thanks for the tip. I will pass it on to our cows.

Quaestor said...

Penelope Trunk (remember her?)

Jeebus H. Crisp, I'm trying to forget that risible cypher of a female. For the "benefit" of those who haven't had the "pleasure", here's a shot of her wearing her sunglasses perched atop her vacuous noggin with a cellphone glued to her ear and a latte cup the size of a human head before her. As they wisely say, one picture is worth a thousand words.

jimbino said...

Only in Amerika can you become a Registered Sex Offender for watering your garden in public.

ALP said...

Urine was an important resource for the dye/fabric guilds back in the 1400-1600's or so.

https://www.objectlessons.org/work-and-innovation-tudors/urine-pots-tudor-replica/s63/a919/

Link above is to example of urine pots; IIRC there were also centrally located pots in villages to piss in to collect larger amounts.

YoungHegelian said...

Why stop at micturition? Let us boldly commit to our recycling efforts without fear or favor or any sense of proportion.

Bring on the Night Soil! Bring it on, I say!

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

What about Amazon delivery drivers? Where do they fit in all of this?

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-driver-poops-driveway_us_5a218ed5e4b0a02abe90ec11

Ambrose said...

I have been happy with miracle gro - and with a small garden, one box lasts several years.

Rick.T. said...

tcrosse said...

"You could still write your name in the snow."

Reminds of the Nixon old joke about Kissinger's urine and Pat's handwriting. Many variations of this I am sure.

Also watch out where the huskies go...

exhelodrvr1 said...

Yeah? Then why won't tomatoes grow on the sidewalks in San Francisco?

Earnest Prole said...

Not to make everything political, but I pee in my yard when I'm in Red America and don't when I'm in Blue.

walter said...

Harvey Weinstein, alternative hortiCulturist, has further questions..

Until you dog owners train them to pee into watering cans, they will not be proper contributors.

"It wasn't just Eskimos and seal skins. Historically, urine must be one of the more useful substances. "
Some neer do wells and bikers "cure" their denim with piss.

rhhardin said...

The truckers'gallon milk bottle trick is probably more convenient for gathering.

rhhardin said...

Public urination isn't illegal if you've got your pants on, Armstrong and Getty point out.

bgates said...

Should you pee on your lawn?

Though I've asked them not to, the Democratic Party keeps doing this.

And they tell me it's raining.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
RigelDog said...

One of my best friends is more than a little eccentric, and also a dedicated and knowledgeable gardener. She used the pee-saving method for her garden for about a year. What I noticed was that her bathroom always smelled like pee while she was collecting pee...guess it is hard to corral this stuff.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

In the winter, one of my kitties like to pee in the snow. Every spring there is a bright green healthy patch of grass in the same spot.

Original Mike said...

"There is certainly no need for a suburban family to ever buy any fertilizer... Diluted urine grows wonderful vegetables."

Why stop at urine?

Christy said...

Urine also contains phosphorus. Collect and concentrate enough of it, and make your own explosives.

Quaestor said...

Urine also contains phosphorus. Collect and concentrate enough of it, and make your own explosives.

Potassium. What we teaching assistants used to call Special K.

Tommy Duncan said...

This nicely explains a few grave sites I've seen with unusually green grass.

tim in vermont said...

LBJ supposedly whipped it out and peed on his daddy's grave a lot. He had some remark about it I can't remember and don't feel like searching up. Maybe he was thanking his daddy for the dick.

MadisonMan said...

Why stop at urine?

Urine is fairly sterile. Unlike fecal matter.

Original Mike said...

Sorry, MM. It was a joke.

tcrosse said...

I was going to piss on Hubert Humphrey's grave, but once I got out out of the service I swore I would never stand in line again.

bagoh20 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
bagoh20 said...

If urine made things grow, we would all be porn stars.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Quaestor. I Googled it and found this folk poem:

John Harollson, John Harollson, we’ve read in song and story,
How women’s tears, through all the years, have moistened fields of glory.
But never was it told before, how ‘mid such scene of slaughter
Your Southern beauties dried their tears and went to making water.

No wonder that your boys were brave; who couldn’t be a fighter,
If every time he fired his gun, he used his sweetheart’s nitre.
And vice versa, what could make a Yankee soldier sadder,
Than dodging bullets fired by a pretty woman’s bladder?

They say there was a subtle smell which lingered in the powder
And as the smoke grew thicker and din of battle louder,
That there was found in this compound one serious objection—
No soldier boy could sniff it without having an erection!

P.S. Harollson was the Confederate chemist who figured out how to make saltpeter out of nitre.

tim in vermont said...

If urine made things grow, we would all be porn stars.

And if natural gas caused cancer, like the anti-frackers seem to worry about, we would all be dead of ass cancer before 30.