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mean_74

Pee bucket

mean_74
11 years ago

I keep a pee bucket in my garden shed. At night I will deposit directly on the pile, and in the past I used to use an old gatorade bottle to transfer the deposit during the day. I have moved this year to having a 5 gallon bucket. I have a second bucket full of sawdust to apply over the top of each deposit to lessen the smell. This only works so well. What I have found to work much better is shredded leaves. I put a couple big handfulls of leaves in the bucket when it was empty. As my deposits grew it pushed the leaf layer up the bucket keeping the deposits (and their smell)underneath the leaf layer. It works much better than the sawdust.

Comments (35)

  • allen456
    11 years ago

    Chicks don't dig you, do they?

  • jolj
    11 years ago

    Allen456, it keeps deer away too.

  • toxcrusadr
    11 years ago

    Chicks who don't 'get' one's resource management efforts may not make it as far as the garden shed in the first place. The cool ones who don't get weeded out will have a higher tolerance.

    Being visionary can have its price, though.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    Lol! Sometimes its a necessity!

    At night sometimes I use a medical grade pee bottle (my grandfather had to use them before he was on the Foley Catheter(These are unused BTW)). But anyways, I have some knee and nerve pain with a touch of arthritis in my knees. So at night when I have to go it is sometimes a nuisance and difficult. So I go in the bottle. Right back to bed. Empty in the morning. Not only does it save my knees it saves my water bill from toilet flushes and feeds my pile...hehehe TMI TMI TMI

  • wertach zone 7-B SC
    11 years ago

    "Sweet Thang" made me get rid of my pee bucket after she moved in. It didn't stink and I emptied and washed it daily. It just grossed her out. Oh well, my night leaks are wasted but I have a secret bucket in the barn! :)

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    Just buy a nice expensive porcelain bucket and call it a "chamber pot"...lol

  • dicot
    11 years ago

    Is there a reason to keep the urine sitting around? I pee into a 5 gal watering can, add some molasses an fish emulsion, dilute it 20:1 with tap water and use immediately, so I don't have to deal with the smell.

  • toxcrusadr
    11 years ago

    LOL!

    The reason is, it's less work to use a sawdust bucket and empty it now and then, vs diluting and applying immediately every time you tinkle.

  • Laurel Zito
    11 years ago

    In my opinion adding pee did not increase the heat and only added more moisture cooling it down. I can't imagine some guy going out at night to pee on a pile. I say guy because a woman would not do that.

  • jolj
    11 years ago

    I was not being cute.
    I am saving pee in a gallon jug, that is clearly marked
    "DEER AWAY" in red marker.
    I pour it into 3 different 5 gallon buckets in different spot to keep the deer out of my garden.
    First time using 2 day old pee, I hope it stinks to high heaven. Now if it would stop tomato worms.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    I use mine to add nitrogen and moisture. You think it would smell but it doesnt. I dont add it everyday only when I have a somewhat fresh looking pile and when its dry.

    This thread is too funny. Im sure some shmarty pants will design a compost bin with a seat on it for maximum comfort...Lol

  • allen456
    11 years ago

    This thread give a whole new meaning to, "who peed in your corn flakes?" Assuming, of course, adding corn flakes to a compost pile was acceptable (because there's no way anybody would eat a bowl of urine soaked corn flakes!).

  • mean_74
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    I'm married so chicks digging me isn't an issue - they don't. My wife will only use the bucket when we go camping. But at least she'll use it.

    I've been dumping the bucket on dry woody piles. I've found I can get woody material to heat up with enough urine.

    And leaves work much better than sawdust to control the odor.

  • wertach zone 7-B SC
    11 years ago

    "(because there's no way anybody would eat a bowl of urine soaked corn flakes!)"

    That does happen, sick people of course. When I was in my 20's, a long time ago, around 1975, I witnessed it happen.

    I thought it was a joke to start with. A friend of a friend said watch this! His girlfriend ate it.

    Needless to say, I threw up, and never saw my friend or his friend again!

  • pnbrown
    11 years ago

    Is there a reason to keep the urine sitting around?

    I have read at least one study that found chelated (aged in bottles) urine is more effective for crop production than fresh. I store mine in the two-liter plastic bottles.

  • rott
    11 years ago

    ..
    I tried peeing in a bucket. Didn't work for me. I prefer to go directly in the pile. Didn't have a problem with the smell. Take the dogs out so they can go and do so myself.

    I don't pollute a gallon and a half of drinking water and I kind of like peeing outside.

    I suppose there's a limerick in there somewhere.

    to sense
    ..

  • batyabeth
    11 years ago

    Dear blaze - already done. It's called a compost toilet. Also called a humanure toilet.
    My own Sweet Thang would flip if I kept a bucket. Compost near the sink, piles outside, me making garlic sprays, etc, in the kitchen and keeping them in the fridge - yes. Pee bucket - no. But now and again I ask the partially resident son to add to the pile.

  • allen456
    11 years ago

    pee in a bucket

    for my gardens benefit

    odor i will endure

    (okay, so it's haiku, not a limerick ;)

  • tn_gardening
    11 years ago

    I keep an old coffee can near my back door. I'm a good neighbor and only use it after dark. It gets dumped on to the compost pile.

    I hear that it helps. Me, I just like peeing outdoors :-)

  • ctnchpr
    11 years ago

    @Allen456,

    The 3rd line of your haiku has 6 syllables.

    "All nits must be picked" has 5.....

  • allen456
    11 years ago

    dangit you're right....serves me right for haikuing so early in the morning

    I would have been watering the garden, except we've been blessed with rain over the past few days.

  • rosiew
    11 years ago

    Fresh pee doesn't have a perceptible odor. Even a few days old does, but the smell goes away in minutes. Have been getting a straw bale ready for planting with pouring several gallons of urine on the top, added a handleful of Milorganite. Thinks it's ready for tomatoes now.

    Rosie

  • ctnchpr
    11 years ago

    "Fresh pee doesn't have a perceptible odor."

    Obviously, you don't frequent Men's public restrooms!

  • toxcrusadr
    11 years ago

    No kidding! And what about asparagus season?

  • ernie85017, zn 9, phx
    11 years ago

    I love it when you make me laugh.

    If pee sits around for 24 hours, it develops ammonia.

    Sprinkled on a pile, it would be "filtered" down through, not remain liquid to develop ammonia. If you are having odor, try less frequent "waterings". I don't know about the bucket of leaves. Seems the pee would gather at the bottom.

    Are you completing this duty all through winter, too?

  • pnbrown
    11 years ago

    Nothing is lost in a sealed container. Storing in containers is much more effective than pouring on the compost pile all winter.

  • toxcrusadr
    11 years ago

    pnbrown wrote:
    "I have read at least one study that found chelated (aged in bottles) urine is more effective for crop production than fresh."

    I am curious about the chelation term. Was there some kind of lab analysis in that study that showed that some component(s) - presumably metals - were chelated to a greater extent after aging?

    Pee would certainly change as bacteria went to work on it, and possibly by chemical changes alone even in a sterile container. I am interested in what exactly they thought was going on.

  • berryman135678
    11 years ago

    All I know is I am going to get caught with my P bucket, one of my ignorant neighbors is going to see me and report me. But there is just something freeing about peeing on my compost under a shiny moon and stars that's liberating....plus the compost loves it.

  • ctnchpr
    11 years ago

    "But there is just something freeing about peeing on my compost under a shiny moon and stars that's liberating...."

    ...and you don't even have to aim!!

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    Yeah the neighbors...

    My fence line is right under my chin so there ya go...

  • rosiew
    11 years ago

    "Fresh pee doesn't have a perceptible odor."
    Obviously, you don't frequent Men's public restrooms! Nope, don't spend any time there, but think the odor is from missed squirts. Agree completely that it'll stink if you eat asparagus.

  • pnbrown
    11 years ago

    Below is a link to a synopsis of a bunch of field trials of urine all over the world. The trials on grain in sweden are the ones I read about before. The aging of the urine isn't mentioned in this article but I am sure that they did age the urine in that trial. I'll keep looking for the actual abstract.

    Here is a link that might be useful: don't piss it away

  • mean_74
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    In the winter it gets dark here pretty early, so I just water the beds. The thought of a big chunk of frozen urine waiting for spring is just too much for even me.

    My bucket in the shed is right next to my neighbors driveway. My lot is only 35 feet wide. Sometimes they are loading their trailer right on the other side of the wall of my shed. Sometimes I wait, but sometimes I can hit the side of the bucket at just the right angle to get an almost silent deosit. Its kind of an art?

    Communing with the pile in the dark with the moonlight and stars overhead is a beautiful thing. Romantic almost. My prose doesn't do it justice like Forerunner, but it is a think of beauty none the less.

  • blazeaglory
    11 years ago

    Lol!!