Anyone know what the relative merits of wormery juice are against those
of dilute urine?

I'm guessing that urine essentially just puts a usable form of nitrogen
(urea) into the soil but with little or no Phosphorous or Potassium. So
in normal NPK fertiliser terms it is only N.

What about wormery juice? Is that purely a form of nitrogen or does it
have a better balance of ingredients as a plant fertiliser? Any P or K
in it?

From experimenting the last couple of years, dilute human pee makes an
excellent (but unbalanced) fertiliser for vegetables. Would there be any
additional benefits to setting up a wormery too? No point if it just
creates a nitrogenous feed.

--
David in Normandy.
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"David in Normandy" wrote in message
. fr...
Anyone know what the relative merits of wormery juice are against those of
dilute urine?

I'm guessing that urine essentially just puts a usable form of nitrogen
(urea) into the soil but with little or no Phosphorous or Potassium. So in
normal NPK fertiliser terms it is only N.

What about wormery juice? Is that purely a form of nitrogen or does it
have a better balance of ingredients as a plant fertiliser? Any P or K in
it?

From experimenting the last couple of years, dilute human pee makes an
excellent (but unbalanced) fertiliser for vegetables. Would there be any
additional benefits to setting up a wormery too? No point if it just
creates a nitrogenous feed.

Now there's a good question that I would also like the answer to.
I am thinking of getting a wormery as my council is offering one cheaply
(with a voucher to get worms; to help us recycle) simply to get the worm
juice as a fertiliser. I don't really need one as I have room for a compost
heap and could provide my own worms, but they make worm juice sound so
delicious for your garden that it *must* be better than diluted pee.
I hope someone will come along soon who knows the chemical composition of
worm juice, I would purely love to know, like yourself, David.

Tina

"David in Normandy" wrote in message
. fr...
Anyone know what the relative merits of wormery juice are against those of
dilute urine?

I'm guessing that urine essentially just puts a usable form of nitrogen
(urea) into the soil but with little or no Phosphorous or Potassium. So in
normal NPK fertiliser terms it is only N.

What about wormery juice? Is that purely a form of nitrogen or does it
have a better balance of ingredients as a plant fertiliser? Any P or K in
it?

From experimenting the last couple of years, dilute human pee makes an
excellent (but unbalanced) fertiliser for vegetables. Would there be any
additional benefits to setting up a wormery too? No point if it just
creates a nitrogenous feed.

I've never thought of using it a fertiliser, I yust put it on the compost
heap.

Alan

alan.holmes wrote:
From experimenting the last couple of years, dilute human pee makes an
excellent (but unbalanced) fertiliser for vegetables. Would there be any
additional benefits to setting up a wormery too? No point if it just
creates a nitrogenous feed.
I've never thought of using it a fertiliser, I yust put it on the compost
heap.

We tend to put it in the water butt

On 22/05/2011 19:52, Christina Websell wrote:
"David in wrote in message
. fr...
Anyone know what the relative merits of wormery juice are against those of
dilute urine?

I'm guessing that urine essentially just puts a usable form of nitrogen
(urea) into the soil but with little or no Phosphorous or Potassium. So in
normal NPK fertiliser terms it is only N.

What about wormery juice? Is that purely a form of nitrogen or does it
have a better balance of ingredients as a plant fertiliser? Any P or K in
it?

From experimenting the last couple of years, dilute human pee makes an
excellent (but unbalanced) fertiliser for vegetables. Would there be any
additional benefits to setting up a wormery too? No point if it just
creates a nitrogenous feed.

Now there's a good question that I would also like the answer to.
I am thinking of getting a wormery as my council is offering one cheaply
(with a voucher to get worms; to help us recycle) simply to get the worm
juice as a fertiliser. I don't really need one as I have room for a compost
heap and could provide my own worms, but they make worm juice sound so
delicious for your garden that it *must* be better than diluted pee.
I hope someone will come along soon who knows the chemical composition of
worm juice, I would purely love to know, like yourself, David.

Tina



There is an interesting article on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine

It seems that urine also has reasonable quantities of phosphorous and
potassium too, making it a more balanced fertiliser than I assumed.


Quote:
Urine contains large quantities of nitrogen (mostly as urea), as well as
significant quantities of dissolved phosphates and potassium, the main
macronutrients required by plants. Diluted at least 8:1 with water it
can be applied directly to soil as a fertilizer. Undiluted, it can
chemically burn the roots of some plants, but it can be safely used as a
source of complementary nitrogen in carbon rich compost.[17] Urine
typically contains 70% of the nitrogen and more than half the phosphorus
and potassium found in urban waste water flows, while making up less
than 1% of the overall volume. Thus source separation and on-site
treatment has been studied in Sweden as a way to partially close the
cycle of agricultural nutrient flows, to reduce the cost and energy
intensivity of sewage treatment, and the ecological consequences such as
eutrophication, resulting from an influx of nutrient rich effluent into
aquatic or marine ecosystems. The fertilization effect of urine has been
found to be comparable to that of commercial fertilizers with an
equivalent NPK rating. [18]

However, depending on the diet of the producer, urine may also have
undesirably high concentrations of various inorganic salts such as
sodium chloride, which are also excreted by the renal system.
Concentrations of heavy metals such as lead, mercury, and cadmium,
commonly found in solid human waste, are much lower in urine (though not
low enough to qualify for use in organic agriculture under current EU
rules).[19] Proponents of urine as an agricultural fertilizer usually
claim the risks to be negligible or acceptable, and point out that
sewage causes more environmental problems when it is treated and
disposed of compared with when it is used as a resource.

It is unclear whether source separation and on site treatment of urine
can be made cost effective, and to what degree the required behavioral
changes would be regarded as socially acceptable, as the largely
successful trials performed in Sweden may not readily generalize to
other industrialized societies.[18] In developing countries, the
application of pure urine to crops is rare, but the use of whole raw
sewage (termed night soil) has been common throughout history.

--
David in Normandy.
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