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Old May 22nd, 2009 #71
George Witzgall
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Donnie in Ohio View Post
Are you saying you piss on your parsley, George?

A sincere WTF?, dude.
haha yeah, I started a few weeks ago, but I haven't really had the time to be consistent with it.

see, I had a real problem with weeds in my garden last year, so this year I got several truckfuls of chipped wood and spread it over my garden to a couple inches.

the only problem is as the wood decomposes it takes nitrogen from the soil. so I applied nitrogen-rich chemical fertilizer overtop the mulch. then I put in my plants.

for greens and beans, actually, I made raised beds in the early spring and I just put the mulch between the rows.

but for the tomatoes, squash, eggpolants, and peppers I have been digging holes in the mulch bed and putting them in.

a few weeks ago I read about using urine, first to speed decomposition of compost, but also as a fertilizer. however, you have to use it immediately (the same day you produce it) or it changes chemically and is no longer good for the plants, plus it smells horrible. (I once left the urine for a few days, and when I applied it it stank up the garden.)

basically, you just mix 1 part (fresh!) urine with two parts water, and pour it around the base of the plants, making sure none of it gets on the leaves or stems since it can burn the plants.

you can't really use it for greens or parsley since you can't get close enough to the base of the plant, but for the other plants it works fine. fresh urine is sterile (you can even drink it in a pinch), but again you have to apply it immediately.

interestingly, you can use old urine (which has a lot of ammonia in it I think) to pour on top of compost heaps to speed decomposition. however, I don't want to keep bottles of urine around because someone might notice. also, I don't really compost that much, and I wouldn't do it anyway because of the smell.
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