eggshells for calcium? and more???

[al-k-mist]

High everyone
We have chickens. they get scraps from our garden, we eat no gmo stuff or non organic, they ewere getting oranic laying pellets but we are going to make our own (thanks, CC)
Now that we have noted that they eat healthier than most americans, and a side-by-side view of their egg vs store-bought "vegetarin-fed cage-free" eggs...i never want a store egg again, ours are almost orange, and stay together, solid snd fucking orgasmially delicious
would there be more benefit from using the eggshells in soil mixes, or returning them to the chickens?
explain
Thank you so much, I love you
Namaste Boom Shiva

 

[noreason]

I would use'em to make compost, or use directly in the soil. If you break them in little pieces they will be decompose faster.

I would not use in my indoor garden because I'm not an organic fan, but if you want, you can do it. Just wash them well from every residue that can make proliferate protein loving bacteria.

Btw...I love to re-use my own kitchen refuses to make something good out of'em.

 

[Gascanastan]

Mine end up in the compost...best place for them. You can put them in a jar w/vinegar for a few months to make the calcium become available faster....I think Darc Mind and a few others around here have done so...including myself.

But..compost them is what I do..

 

[OrganicLearner]

I'm curious about how you can make your own feed pellets? Care to elaborate? Or what do you mean by organic laying pellets?

 

[jcmjrt]

I feed my worms with eggshells. I just crush them up a little by hand with egg residue on them still and throw them in and the worms do the rest. I also feed the worms my fruit and veggie scraps, coffee grounds, rabbit poop, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, rock dust, oyster shell flour...and as you might imagine the castings are pure gold to grow with.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

From Gil Carandang on making a solution with Calcium Phosphate from eggshells.....

Calcium Phosphate

A lot of agriculture advisers have used calcium phosphate for better plant growth, health, pest and disease controls. Natural farmers use this bionutrient very specific. Under the theory of Nutrioperiodism developed by a Japanese horticulturist, Yasushi Inoue in the 1930’s, plants and animals need a very specific nutrient relative to the stage of their development. In the plant, there is the essential vegetative growth , changeover and the reproductive periods. In animals, like humans, there is the infantile, juvenile and adulthood. It is not only critical to provide the right nutrient at the right stage of the development, but also critical to use or apply specific nutrient of calcium phosphate in the juvenile or changeover period. For the plant, for example, we know that nitrogen is critical on the vegetative stage as potassium is critical in the flowering and fruiting stages.

It is however, the changeover period that is most critical that will determine the quality of the final reproductive stage. At this stage, an additional nutrient is badly needed by the plant. And this is calcium phosphate. Calcium phosphate is good for plants’ “morning sickness”. It is the stage that additional baby needs to be fed or the process where flower/fruit is about to come. Ash made from soybean stems are excellent for this purpose.

Here is a simple, natural method of generating calcium phosphate. Get eggshells and roast them enough to generate some good ashes. Afterwhich, dip these roasted eggshells on about equal visual volume of vinegar. Allow it to sit for a couple of weeks until eggshells are practically broken down by the vinegar acids. You may use this diluted 20 parts water and can be sprayed or watered to the plants during the changeover period.

When this is applied to that changeover period, it will improve plant health and productivity. The use of calcium phosphate is important to natural farmers. This however, does not mean that we shall forget the nutrient timing application of other critical nutrients for plant growth both macro and micro nutrients, given at the right stages and combinations.

We consider this very important bionutrient needed by the plants used by natural farmers.

Eggshells = Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) just like oyster shell powder, calcite lime, etc. These sources contain approximate Phosphorus content @ 2.8% so you could use any of these for Mr. Carandang's formula.

When done then take the shells, rinse off the vinegar (Acetic acid) and add to your worm bins or compost pile.

HTH

CC

 

[al-k-mist]

organic learner
we bought "payback" brand pellets that were 'organic'..green ish bag, and like 6$ more per bag..but going to pportland and buying bulk organic grains that chickens love, and save drastically. it wont be pellets, and mixing is a bit more work, but fuck it

thanks again, clackamas cootz. Always to the rescue with organic higher-learning...but is what he was saying, that THIS is the source of P, at the right time, that the plant needs? (plus crab meal, bought some today) Amazing info

 

[MrSterling]

"vegetarian-fed/cage-free" is part of the capitalist bullshit. Every time we come up with a term the businesspeople corrupt it and find a loophole. "Vegetarian fed" is a nice way of selling corn-fed, and "cage-free" will just indicate a giant warehouse without cages. "Free-Range" often means a pen adjacent to the warehouse that they never use. It's why we are down to using words like "pasture fed" and "carbon sequestration". Good luck commercializing those, assholes. Home raised eggs always blow store bought out of the water.

I'm with everyone else on composting. My pa used to toss some under his tomato plants, but I think that was a little ineffective short term.

 

[noreason]

I'm with everyone else on composting. My pa used to toss some under his tomato plants, but I think that was a little ineffective short term.

Your pa was a smart pa! Tomatoes often need a calcium add-on to grow healty fruits without the black pattern at the bottom of'em.

Doing this on regular basis offer a good long term source for calcium, your pa give me a nice idea to fight against Ca def on some tomatoes strain. Thanks.

 

[al-k-mist]

Noreason
My wife uses a complete organic fert using neem seed meal, lime, kelp, and...somethin , but she used these on tomatoes here and we had killer luck.(mom had good luck in sicily, but i doubt she used organics, lmao, but they are starting now...oh she prob used mt etna dust if that was popular then(80s)
Plans are to make the Calphos for the flip, but to incorporate some into the compost this winter. and hopefully IF we get a piece of property soon, start the worm bin...and if we dont get it...fuck it, start the worms because we wont move till next winter
folks here explained the downfalls of lime, so i got glacial rock dust yesterday...gypsum today...eggshells during the flip from now on...yay...always learning new things. Also narrowed down the search for plant meals, due to so much gmo's(they planto try to grow gmo cannola in willamette valley...yeah, right...like we will go for that.)...just neem and kelp.
Thanks so much for the input, I See, IC

 

[MrSterling]

Noreason; you mean blossom rot I believe. Yes, higher levels of calcium stops that, but I figure my pa was only smart if he left the tomatoes in the same place every year, which I can't remember. If he was rotating their location every year I'd find it hard to believe that a tomato plant could use the calcium in an egg shell within the first season of being used. My gardening practice has been to compost it all, then feed the soil.

There is an old school of thought re garden rotation of leaving tomatoes in the same place every year to improve quality and resistance. It goes against most logic of pest and disease problems to leave a plant in the same place every year, but I may just start some experiments on that next year.

 

[noreason]

Noreason; you mean blossom rot I believe. Yes, higher levels of calcium stops that, but I figure my pa was only smart if he left the tomatoes in the same place every year, which I can't remember. If he was rotating their location every year I'd find it hard to believe that a tomato plant could use the calcium in an egg shell within the first season of being used. My gardening practice has been to compost it all, then feed the soil.

Exactly, blossom rot And I agree about the gap time from when you put eggshell in the soil and when they becomes in an available form for the plants.

Using them directly in the soil would mean a slow release in a long time. Compost'em would be a medium release in a medium time, and if you can make it a liquid solution, it would be an high release in a very short time.

Just my two here

 

[MrSterling]

Yes, I need to go back and reread CCs post re:liquid form.

 

[Dirt Life]

I use egg shells as an amendment to my medium every time I make a new batch. I just pop the shells into the oven at 350 degrees for about 10-15 minutes, until the shells turn light golden brown. Kills off the harmful bacteria, and it also makes the shells brittle. I put the shells in a coffee grinder, then I add it to the medium with my limes.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Noreason; you mean blossom rot I believe. Yes, higher levels of calcium stops that, but I figure my pa was only smart if he left the tomatoes in the same place every year, which I can't remember. If he was rotating their location every year I'd find it hard to believe that a tomato plant could use the calcium in an egg shell within the first season of being used. My gardening practice has been to compost it all, then feed the soil.

There is an old school of thought re garden rotation of leaving tomatoes in the same place every year to improve quality and resistance. It goes against most logic of pest and disease problems to leave a plant in the same place every year, but I may just start some experiments on that next year.

I stopped BER on both my tomatoes and squashes with foliar applications (2 in total) of Sea-90. Typically the discussion about BER seems to revolve around Ca and watering, so I was quite surprised with the results I observed using Sea-90.

And I've read Eliot Coleman discuss the same thing--rotation vs leaving in situ every year as the old timers do. I'm still experimenting with rotations, but also working with cover crops (with vegetables).

I did the thing with distilled vinegar (I did a freeze extraction) and the shells, haven't done anything with the shells yet.

 

[Sir_Stickybuds]

to stop BER this year, i used mumseys magic mix, look it up, corn meal, epsom salts, powdered milk, and bone meal. The last 2 are what contain the calcium for stopping BER

 

[floral]

I have been using powdered eggshell (sourced from eggs we get from a local organic farm we visit every once in a while) when mixing soil. Don't buy slaughterhouse or overfishing industry ingredients, so this is my substitute for other shell meals. Have considered picking up abandoned crab shells next time I'm near the ocean, but I wonder if the benefits of adding another Ca source are worth the effort given the small quantities used in each batch of soil. We have plenty of eggs to cover any soil amending needs, and throw in the worm bin, and add to the cold compost pile (and pave the road with etc. etc. etc.) so is there any reason to go out collecting other shells to grind and add to soil?

 

[RanchoDeluxe]

Floral- One benefit of adding crab shell meal opposed to using just eggshells, is that crab shell contains Chitin. I may be a little off on my explanation, but, chitin either is or produces a bacteria that also loves to eat the exoskeleton of harmful predators. Bottomline is it's good shit. Google or wait for Coot to explain.

As far as composting eggshells goes it's something I add to my compost often. Next to stalks from my harvest, eggshells seem to be the last thing to break down. I'd be curious to know how long it takes for an eggshell to become available to the plant.

RD

 

[floral]

Pondering how much eggshell is too much in the worm bin. We go through 4-6 eggs per day and the shells pile up rapidly. Have a bag of ground up shells for my soil mix, put some in with the worms, sprinkle it all around the property where we're not growing anything, throw it in compost piles... and still have extras. I have been reluctant to overdo shells in the worm bin - don't wanna go too extreme on Ca/lime in my EWC - but maybe I shouldn't worry about it.

 

[floral]

Also, about the calcium phosphate recipe that everyone posts from Gil Carandang, is it calcium phosphate or calcium acetate? Most reputable sites I've seen say eggshells plus vinegar will yield calcium acetate (from the acetic acid aka vinegar). Is there Ca phosphate in there too? And do people roast it over charcoal or in their oven? Does it reek as much as it does when I toast eggshells before putting them in the worm bin?