Bambooloo & Humanure Composting

Things I love…

If you had told me a year ago I would be fascinated by Humanure Composting, I would have had trouble believing it.

And yet, here I am, perfectly happy to be foraging for wood shavings and aromatic herbs to store in little containers in my toilet, and carrying a bucket of ‘humanure’ out to my favourite part of the farm every couple of days.

A quick guide to my set-up is below, but for the detailed guide to how I manage my actual composting for Humanure, you’ll want to get the online course.

Online Course on making Humanure Compost

Here’s my set up:

Bamboolooo

The Bambooloo has a beautiful bamboo seat, lid, and exterior. In terms of aesthetics, I think it’s by far the most beautiful composting toilet I’ve ever seen.

Lift the lid, and you can see how simple the set-up is — it’s just a plastic bucket, designed to fit snugly under the lower toilet seat.

I am using compostable bin liners — as newbie, I appreciate the hygiene of having the humanure contained in a bag. Maybe I’ll outgrow the need for the bin liners one day.

The mixture inside the bag is a blend of wood shavings and coconuit coir.

There’s a lot of debate about the best mixture to use, and it’s something I’ll explore in detail in the years ahead.

You can read more about the different blends and ratios in my online course.

If you’re just starting out, or curious, then the Bambooloo comes with guidelines on the optimal ratios of coco coir and wood shavings, and mine arrived in a big cardboard box with enough wood shavings to last me a few weeks.

Can you use Humanure compost in the garden?

My answer (for now) is no. Definitely not.

My main guidelines for this approach are following Hua Parakore growing protocols, but also paying attention to what Rudolf Steiner said to the farmers in the Agriculture Course of 1924.

I needed a separate area to put the Humanure, and chose this neglected corner of the Soil Farm — when I moved here in October 2021 it had obviously been sprayed with weedkiller, but worse than that was what I found when digging up the dead weeds — plastic, carpet underlay, burned remains of electronic devices, shards of glass… it was horrid, and I just knew I would never ever use this space for growing food.

It was late spring, I had my beloved Dahlia bulbs from the old home needing to go into the ground, and I knew most of the farm operation was going to be food production.

It was with a sense of deep embarrassment that I planted my favourite flowers into this horrible soil, just hoping they would be happier than if I let them rot away in storage.

They grew!

It’s now my favourite part of the farm

What’s surprised me over the last few months is that this is now my favourite space to visit.

Partly because of the view — just look at the sunset!

Also, because it’s well away from all my work: the computer, the seedlings, the vegetable beds, the compost classroom.

This is all mine, and the soil has come from me, is of me in a way that none of the other compost piles are.

So how does this soil get used?

It doesn’t.

If anything, it’s feeding the flowers that I grow in this area — flowers to pick and bring inside, to add colour and beauty to my living space.

There’s something incredibly satisfying knowing that human waste can end up as something so exquisite, don’t you think?

Maybe, one day the soil will be used to grow Lavender to harvest for using as an aromatic dried herb for use inside, with my humanure wood shavings. I’ll post all my experiments inside the online course.

For more information, go to the online course:

blueborage.teachable.com/p/humanure-composting

Ideas for innovative edible gardening solutions using biodynamic methods to make exquisite compost is what the world needs right now. For tips, advice and online courses go to www.blueborage.co.nz or get in touch by email at katrina@blueborage.co.nz