How To Turn Urine Into A Safe And Effective Lawn Fertilizer (And Should You?)

Many of us want a lush, green, thriving lawn, but along with the right choice of grass and good mowing habits, it's important to decide which fertilizer is best to use. There's one option that's organic and free, but most of the time, it's simply flushed down the toilet. Yes, we're talking about urine. You may know that it can be added to the compost heap, speeding up the process and adding nutrients, but as long as you follow one simple recommendation, you can also turn it into a safe and effective lawn fertilizer.

Taking a leak directly on your compost heap is fine because there are a whole bunch of different reactions going on in there. Doing so straight onto your lawn is not a good idea. Urine contains several ingredients used in commercial fertilizers, namely nitrogen, with small amounts of potassium and phosphorus, but it's also high in salt. The combination is simply too strong and can burn the grass. So to make it safe for your lawn, urine needs to be diluted with water at a ratio of at least 10-to-1.

The most obvious concern with using urine as a lawn fertilizer is probably the hygiene question. It might seem strange that we spend so much time making sure the toilet is clean only for someone to suggest we spray the stuff around the garden (albeit watered down). In fact, in the vast majority of cases, human urine is sterile and thus harmless. Even if there's a urinary tract infection, it's best to avoid using the urine to fertilize food crops, but it's still okay for lawns.

So what about the odor? Well, although there could be a serious reason why your lawn smells bad, it's probably nothing to do with fertilizing it with urine. When used soon after collection and diluted, the odor is weak. If you want to store it, do so in an airtight container (although regular "production" should make that unnecessary).

There's no single solution for creating a lush lawn. Mowing regularly using the ⅓ rule to keep your grass stress free is just as important as the application of fertilizer at the right time of year. For some people, the idea of using urine is just way too gross, and that's fine, but it's easy to turn urine into a safe and effective lawn fertilizer, and there's no practical or health-related reason not to.