Similar uses for both Coffee Grounds and Urine

What attribute does your urine share with coffee grounds? They are both viable, plentiful natural fertilizers that do not need to be purchased. Natural fertilizers are made of organic remnants while synthetic chemical fertilizers are manufactured from non-organic materials. This article does not address the issue of what are the positive and negative aspects of chemical versus natural fertilizers. It explains how these ingredients are abundantly available in all homes constitute a viable alternative to purchased fertilizers sense they are simply coffee grounds and urine.

Urine Urine is an excellent source of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, the three major plant nutrients. For use in fertilizer, it is also available in the ideal chemical form liquid. Except in certain specific cases, urine should be diluted before being used as a fertilizer to reduce its high acidic levels. Utilize gray water or rainwater to dilute urine is a terrific choice. The dirty water the drains out of sinks, showers, and washing machines is known as gray water. It is a completely hazard-free supply of water for irrigating purposes. The traces of detergent phosphates it often contains are a valuable fertilizer for plants, but when gray water flows into rivers and lakes, phosphate traces become pollutants. Nitrate-rich urine combined with phosphate-rich gray water produce a balanced liquid fertilizer for all kinds of plants.

Mix water and urine in the following ratios (determined by their application):

* Ten to 15 parts water to one part urine if it is to be applied on plants in the growth stage.

* A solution of thirty-fifty parts water to one part urine is a good fertilizer for potted plants. Potted plants will respond quicker to fertilizers.

*You may use one part urine to three parts water, in case to use urine as soil fertilizer.

* Urine may also be used as a fungicide on trees because it contains urea. In this case, you should use one part urine to three parts water. This will get rid of fungus without harming your trees, or tree leaves.

Urine from humans is bacteria-free and sterile. The urine of persons suffering from urinary tract infections should NOT be used to fertilize plants, nor should that of people with Bilharzia or Typhoid Fever. The initial one, Bilharzia, is extremely rare beyond tropical wet climates. The bacteria that causes Typhoid fever becomes inactive once it is excreted.

To fertilize plants, use the fresh urine within 24 hours. If not used right away, the urea in urine will turn into ammonia, which can burn plants. Also, do not use urine to fertilize edible plants for the two weeks before harvesting and always apply it under fruit trees not directly on the fruit or foliage.

Urine that is not fresh can be used, undiluted, on your compost heap, as it is an excellent activator, it is rich in nitrogen and will help to rot the carbon-rich materials in a compost heap.

China, Zimbabwe, and Mexico for example are several countries have and are installing urine fertilization projects. However, this solution is not limited to third world countries. In Sweden and Finland researchers concluded that human urine can be a very high-quality plant fertilizer.

Some advantages of using urine as a natural liquid fertilizer are:

* Reducing sewage pollution by reducing gray water in sewer or septic systems

* Using human urine would help reduce water consumption like toilet flushing

* Some professionals believe that human urine is a more effective fertilizer than sewage compost since sewage sludge contains organic and inorganic chemical contaminants and pathogenic microorganisms.

* Human urine is absolutely free

Coffee Grounds Used coffee grounds can be used both as a plant fertilizer and as a cat and pest repellent, though their use is usually limited to private gardens and houseplants. When using coffee grounds to amend the soil, they should be mixed around the plant prior to watering. Used coffee grounds will then slowly release their nitrogen content. Used coffee is a good fertilizer when used with gray water and mixed at about a 1/2 pound of coffee grounds to 5 gallons of water.

Use coffee grounds about once a month to fertilize vegetable beds, houseplants and flowers. In this case, the dried used grounds may be directly mixed into the soil.

As pest repellent, used coffee grounds can be mixed with orange peels or eggshells and scattered around vegetable or flowerbeds edges. Apparently, slugs and snails don’t like caffeine. An easy inexpensive way to kill almost all slugs and a large proportion of snails is a spray solution that contains 2% caffeine. Felines steer clear of the scent of oranges as well as coffee.

Like urine, adding used coffee grounds to compost heaps will increase their nitrogen content and hasten the breaking-down, or ripening, process.

Of course, as should be apparent, the use of human urine and used coffee grounds as natural plant fertilizers is not a modern-day scientific breakthrough. This is just an example of how modern man has improved many natural methods.

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