OT "shop toilet"

hope this won't be too weird. hope i'm not going to open myself up here too much for ridicule. just thought of something i could post. ordinarily i have nothing to say, usually just sit back and read what's written. was just out in my shop and realized there was something i could "contribute". years ago i bought a composting toilet to put in my barn workshop, never got around to putting it in though. sometimes it's a hassle to go into the house to take a leak (snow, rain, lazy, busy, etc.). used to pee in the lawn in back of the barn but eventually i thought maybe if my neighbors are seeing me they might be offended. the composting toilet requires putting "carbonaceous material" in it to filter the urine; peat moss, dried leaves, sawdust, wood shavings, etc. i figured i'd try filling a plastic 5 gallon bucket with peat moss and piss in that. have it in a corner of my shop. been using it for years now. like the composting toilet claims, this peat-moss piss-bucket ordinarily doesn't stink at all. rarely can i smell it (and it's not because i've become inured to it, it's because it doesn't stink). rarely i can smell it, like maybe on a hot day (but today was REALLY hot and i didn't smell it at all). i think it's smelly only when it's totally full but even then like only when it's disturbed (when i take a leak into it). this is kinda embarrassing to write about, i'd think most people would be like "eeewwww". for me it works. no toilet, too much of a hassle to go into the house, don't want to/can't pee outside.... pee bucket, works good. here's the thing, (and this people might really be "EEEWWW" to also) i dump it into my garden. pretty smelly when you dump it. first time i dumped it i was like "jeez, this smells JUST like cow pee/bedding!" (i thought it would be UTTERLY foul and disgusting, it wasn't) i was pretty surprised. but since then i've come to think it smells *kinda* like cow pee, i think human pee, at least mine, is somehow "sweeter" smelling (and that can be kinda gross in it's own way) than cow pee. BUT, i've been getting GREAT crops of nitrogen loving vegetables, corn, peas, spinach, etc.. for years i had only gotten scrawny diseased misshapen corn, ever since i started putting my pee bucket on the corn i've been getting fantastic healthy full beautifully formed ears (and deliciously sweet) (sugary enhanced hybrid corn). seems to me there is much less insect damage too. thing i've been worried about recently though is if my meds are being absorbed by the plants. i've read they're finding traces of prescription medications in (ground?) (reservoir?) water. i've left this pee bucket out there, full, all winter long for several winters and it's never frozen and split the bucket (thank god huh?!). i've been worried about getting some kind of disease from using human urine in my garden, so far, nothing, at least as far as i am aware of . well, so, what i'm saying is, if you have a shop w/ no toilet and is inconvenient for you to take a leak, and if you don't mind dumping a bucket of pee soaked peat moss somewhere outside... it can be a convenient, low cost "toilet". (i think. i hope.) (now i'm worried there's some health department ordinances against using human waste in a "suburban" vegetable garden) (i know they used to use and as far as i know still DO use "night soil" in gardens in china. when i was there everyone repeatedly cautioned me to wash fruit, etc. seems they don't even eat the skin of apples etc. either. everyone peeled them every time). (i don't ever use crap though, just pee.)

oh, one more thing. my neighbor used to be some kind of horticulturist, i used to get bedding straw from a local horse farm, he'd warn me "you're gonna burn your plants by putting that bedding down, the urine in the straw is going to burn your plants!". never happened. i think for years my garden actually was *extremely* nitrogen *starved*! i think the carbonaceous-ness of the straw just sucked up all the available nitrogen. i think that's why for years i had such LOUSY crops of nitrogen loving vegetables. once i started putting my own pee on my garden my vegetables are kicking ass. best fertilizer i ever used. one year though, and this is the warning. putting down *concentrated* pee WILL burn your plants. one year my corn was about 4 inches high and i put down a long thin pile of the soaked peat moss between the rows, 4 rows. next day i came out and all the little corn leaves WERE "burnt" on their edges. i was astounded and very sad. what it seemed to me must've happened was there was a dense concentration of ammonia GAS that just laid over the garden. it was a very hot day when i laid the peat moss down, i think the sun just sizzled clouds of ammonia gas out of the urine. it's hard to tell *when* it can burn the plants. since then i've twice put down the soaked peat moss around tall

so is this-all more talk of urine than you guys wanna hear about?

b.w.