pee in compost

[Jim Ford]

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Not sure what the atmosphere is like now in your part of the world CM, but up here in the highlands just over 78% of our air is composed of nitrogen ... isn't that sufficient for leguminous plants to do their 'fixing' thing?

That's right - the bacteria fix atmospheric nitrogen.

Jim

[Ferret]

Hi Faz
I new I had seen something in a back copy of Gardening Which about this and managed to dig it out today.
There verdict was that in a well balanced compost heap i.e. one that has a mixture of nitrogen rich soft green material such as weeds, grass cuttings and veg peelings along with more wood woody carbon rich elements it will not benefit from pee or any other nitrogen rich fertiliser, in fact it may make it turn smelly and sour ‘to much of a good thing and all that’. On the other hand if the heap has a lot of woody material pee or other nitrogen fertilisers may help composting to take place but will not speed it up. Hope that helps.

Ferret

[faz]

Originally Posted by Ferret

Hi Faz
I new I had seen something in a back copy of Gardening Which about this and managed to dig it out today.
There verdict was that in a well balanced compost heap i.e. one that has a mixture of nitrogen rich soft green material such as weeds, grass cuttings and veg peelings along with more wood woody carbon rich elements it will not benefit from pee or any other nitrogen rich fertiliser, in fact it may make it turn smelly and sour ‘to much of a good thing and all that’. On the other hand if the heap has a lot of woody material pee or other nitrogen fertilisers may help composting to take place but will not speed it up. Hope that helps.

Ferret

many thanks for your time and effort

[Cotham Marble]

Originally Posted by valleyforge

Not sure what the atmosphere is like now in your part of the world CM, but up here in the highlands just over 78% of our air is composed of nitrogen ... isn't that sufficient for leguminous plants to do their 'fixing' thing? I don't have much of a background in botany so it's a serious enquiry.

'Zum times I der sit 'n wonder, t'other times I der just sit'. Frankly I'm not sure what I was prattling on about - but yes the nitrogen that is fixed, is atmospheric nitrogen.

The processes that are involved in a) benefitting a single plant and b) benefitting the surounding soil are complex. In simple terms however to achieve a high crop from an annual plant like runner beans you need to provide an enriched soil at the outset. Certainly the plant will see the development of nodules in the roots which acommodate nitrogen fixing bacteria which will contribute nitrogen to the plant, but this wouldn't be enough to stimulate a maximum bean crop in the short growing season.

Because legumes hold the 'fixed' nitrogen in their cells, contribution to the surrounding soils only happens as part of incidental decay processes, which actually involve a loss of nitrogen back to the atmosphere. There are free floating soil bacteria which also fix atmospheric nitrogen, and some level of the nitrogen cycle actually occurs entirely within the soil - in this context 'atmospheric nitrogen' is best understood as gaseous nitrogen, in that isn't floating off into the air but remaining within the soil between 'denitrification' and 'fixing'.

So Jim is right - but the old school gardeners were right also because they were motivated by getting a good crop of green beans and their methods were informed by trial and error. - I'll now go and lie down

CM

[ChrisJB]

Bob Flowerdew has long been an advocate of such goings on, though I've never done it yet.

Chris

[tom00_uk]

its a funny body product for people to unlike so deeply. It naturally sterile, unless you have a infection so aside from having a high urea concentration is harmless unlike other body products that posses a high risk of infection