Options for Urine

We have only composting toilets here, but I'm wanting to up our game as far as using our urine constructively.  Mostly it just goes directly onto the ground--hopefully near a tree.  Despite my pleas for folks to go farther from the house, it really can get stinky by the mid-summer in dry California.   Sometimes we save it up and put it on plants, but that's a small amount.  We do have a lot of visitors and students coming through.  I've heard of using strawbales to catch the urine and then spread as mulch.  I'm thinking of making a privacy screened area for ladies to pee behind, and wondering best practices for how to capture and save that urine.  Ideas?

The answer to the simple question is not simple.
I think having people just urinate on the ground is a bit 13th century.
Why not capture it properly and use it properly.
Here is something to watch.Uses for Urine

How about setting up something like a camp shower,or something similar.with a bedside potty with bucket for the females..and as for the guys.a 3 or  5 gallon bucket.dump them when the smell gets to bad,or when they get full.

Look into the "portable toilets for camping" (many shapes and sizes, easily found on Amazon); these are two-parts, a holding tank below, and seat w/ fresh water storage tank above. The lower chamber can be taken to wherever you dispose of the contents, after about 10 - 25 uses. When stacked properly, it's at a decent height to actually sit on and use; very stable. These double as our camping toilets, and are more transportable than a 5-gal bucket with seat/lid.

You can also just use the 5-gal bucket designs, which we still use today in our bathrooms, tied to the humanure system we run. These are a tad more troublesome in a camping situation, as you don't want one falling over.

For urine collection, I mentioned elsewhere that buckets or jugs half filled with char and/or fresh wood ash will not smell. My theory is that the pH is too high for the rapid decomposer bacteria to create stink. Left to mull or mellow a while, the urine seems to have decomposed somewhat. I pour a little around the drip line of trees, a little in the dry/coarse compost heap, etc. If it's char, once the liquid is drained off, I suspect it's charged to a certain degree.

When I create my next outhouse, it will use a discarded section of eavestrough in front to catch most of the urine and drain it off toward ... other projects or useful locations. My 2c.

The problem with urine is that it fertilizes quickly but slowly kills plants. It's loaded with salt, and unless you live in a very wet area that salt will likely build up faster than you can flush it deep into the ground.

Often when you see people successfully using urine, take note that they're in a wet climate. And by "wet", I mean that if you put a bucket out in your yard it will fill up and overflow from rain faster than evaporation.

I admit I make Hubby "pee in a bottle" - he's got the better plumbing for it. By using a jug, we can start out with 1/4 of it water, so it's a little pre-diluted when I get it to the garden.  I think it's very important - particularly in dry climates - to dilute it further when using it, due to the salt content. I've always heard 1:1 water/urine for compost or mulch heaps, and 10:1 water/urine for watering plants, but I can imagine in a *really* dry climate as the OP has, aiming more towards 20:1.

Abeja Hummel wrote:

I'm thinking of making a privacy screened area for ladies to pee behind, and wondering best practices for how to capture and save that urine.  Ideas?

I am totally working on practical ideas for this issue. In my back field, I have a bucket with an altered lid so it sat securely, but I lacked a private spot to put it, so it's had too little use. I used a mix of wood chips and biochar in the bucket. If it got more use, I would have needed to empty it into a compost, but since it only solved half the problem, it tends to evaporate/decompose faster than the bucket fills.

The more I read about healthy soil, the more I feel our soils need more carbon, rather than more nitrogen. This is why I'm *really* looking for ways to mix the urine with high carbon sources such as Abeja's suggestion of strawbales, or my more locally available, chipped trees. I have read that fall leaves don't do a good job - they tend to mat down and go anaerobic from personal experience. I think though, that rather than actually distributing urine soaked straw, I would actually let it compost and then distribute the finished product.

The exception to that would be if you have a need for a fast-growing wood or pole supply. Putting a "pee shed" in the middle of a ring of coppiced trees such as hazelnuts that would provide a source of fuel or a source material to feed a chipper for making compost, and having the users drop a measured amount of water and wood chips after each donation, is where I'm currently leaning. I want the shed to be elevated above a mound of high-carbon material, so there's no risk to my water table, and, yes, I want it to be pretty and private so that using it is pleasant, rather than yucky. Part of my ring may be some bamboo, as I find plenty of uses for it, but I'm worried it will try to put culms up right through the pile, so I'm still thinking on that part!

As mentioned above, plants where your goal is fruit, I would use it sparingly as it will encourage green growth rather than fruit. I you feel you can use tons of mulch, you could try using it on a comfrey patch specifically for harvesting. Personally, I find comfrey *really* sucks up water, so I'm trying to find a "clean" way of adding water to the urine. If I was prepared to find a motor home/boat toilet to salvage, they have a flapper valve so you can add water, sit and pee, then open the flapper while adding some extra rinse water if desired.  So the urine will just feed the comfrey patch, but the comfrey will then feed the rest of your plants.

I have been told in another thread that the urine of the people eating the food you produce will not be more nitrogen than the land will handle, but as Abeja's identified, location is everything and the tendency is to end up with too much in too few, but convenient, locations.  Hopefully, this will give people a few ideas to start the ball rolling.

Dunno, Tony, that's not my experience, but I'm using it over a large area with both annuals and compost heaps and shrubs. The well water on both properties I've owned had a helluva lot of dissolved salts too -- enough that I have to be careful with some plants.

I would generally fit into the "dry" category based on your bucket test.

I agree that dilution is important. If I were container gardening, I would be mighty careful. The salts from any source will build up.