Janel heard a piece on NPR the other day about how to keep pests out of the garden, and since something kept eating our squash flowers last year, we took note. Apparently meat-eating males have an effective deterrent to some garden pests in their urine, so I've been surreptitiously distributing my pee around the perimeter of our garden. (I've also heard that urine in general is a good compost accelerator). Hopefully it's not a bad idea to mix folkloric recipes, because after Janel cuts my hair I sometimes gather it up afterwards and spread it around the garden, carefully avoiding the rows of lettuce. (Last year we were enjoying a fresh salad and Janel noticed that there was hair in her salad...a lot of hair.) I think the garden is already doing better than last year...perhaps the pee does help. It could also be that I'm being more faitful in watering it.
If it was partly a renewed connection to the earth and the seasons and the cycles of life and death and life that I was after with this garden, I suppose it's working. It's a little strange to reflect on the fact that birds are building nests out of me...and on the idea of being alive while a part of me is already decomposing and pushing up the daisies (or tomatoes, as the case may be).
Here's a little peek at our garden ecosystem (I'll leave the pee'ing to your imagination):
Our garden plot.
The little compost box I made of scrap wood, to decompose table scraps and overripe veggies found dumpster diving .
Our rain barrel and overflow rain barrel to collect water for the garden. The rain barrel was made from an old Pepsi syrup drum and the overflow barrel was also rescued (found floating in the river).
Not too many people actually understand that we participate in the global cycling of nutrients (not only as a civilization but also as individuals). I know someone who became fascinated with the idea upon learning about the nitrogen cycle. She too started peeing in her garden and was thrilled with the idea that nitrogen from her body could travel into her vegetables and then into another person. She ended up co-founding an organization (SOIL) that does ecological sanitation projects in Haiti (ie. they build toilets).
Let me know how your pee experiment is working....I know of a few peeer's in my house that I could put to work.....my bean plants are turning yellow, so maybe pee is the answer....Willem suggested fertilizer. Let me know
It was working quite well, I thought...then we went away for a vacation and something ate most of the large green tomatoes.
For your situation, perhaps you could start a little compost pile from kitchen scraps and have your pee'ers pee on that (urine is a compost accelerator, from what I've heard) and then use the rich soil from that on your beans?
ok, based on your advice, I discreetly pee-ed around my flower garden before i left sunday. only problem, i had not drank enough coffee to cover the entire border.
guess I will get an idea of my potentcy next weekend.
Let me know how it works for you...maybe you'll get the best of both worlds and it will keep the deer away and attract some bears? Have you eaten a lot of blueberries lately? (Just kidding).
I can say conclusively that pee-ing did not save my flower bed. During the past week, the deers turned it into a garden salad. I'm tempted to add some zest to their diet by sprinkling cayenne pepper on the plants.
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