How and Why I Use Eggshells to Fertilize my Organic Garden

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How I use Eggshells to fertilize my Organic Garden. Over the last year I have been investigating the science behind garden practices methods and products in the Testing Garden Assumptions Series. As a part of this series I have taken a look at a number of resources often sighted as being able to be used to fertilize your garden. I focused on free and local resources because I wanted to see if I could be a little more sustainable and hopefully fertilize my garden for years to come for free. In order to analyze the fertilizer potential of a material I look at two main areas. The organic macro nutrients such as Nitrogen Phosphorus and Potassium that are required in higher concentrations and the trace elements or micro nutrients that are equally as important however required in significantly smaller concentrations. Plants require or gain benefit from 21 elements of these 15 are commonly tested for in our analysis. Of the 6 remaining some are not commonly tested for while others such as Carbon, Oxygen and Hydrogen are gasses that are in consistent concentrations in our atmosphere. So far free and local resources that have shown fertilizer potential are Coffee Grounds, Tea Leaves, Comfrey, Autumn Leaves, Wood ash or Woodchips and even Human Urine. Today I thought I would take a look at another commonly recommended organic amendment Eggshells. The main recommendation is that eggshells are made primarily of Calcium Carbonate and calcium is required by many plants and is critical for things such as healthy tomato production helping to avoid things like blossom end rot. The assumption that eggshells have high concentrations of calcium is quite correct. Researchers in the Netherlands had eggshells from a number of sources analyzed and found that the concentration of calcium in eggshells averaged around 390 mg/g or 39% of the shell. The calcium in eggshells is not immediately available to plants. It needs to be in its elemental form as appose to the calcium carbonate. Some sources recommend treating eggshells with vinegar or acetic acid to release the calcium. Unfortunately while egg shells will react with vinegar it does not release the elemental calcium it simply binds it and neutralizes the acid. Related Videos: Testing Garden Assumptions Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5mfR-r4BXH3UTGH_3UAG6cB8NnlO8M1U References: Research paper from the Netherlands: http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/79/12/1833.short Other interesting research: http://www.hi-tm.com/RFA/food-path-summ.pdf http://www.planetnatural.com/composter-connection/compost-concerns/pathogens/ http://web.extension.illinois.edu/homecompost/science.cfm http://www.medicaldaily.com/heating-municipal-waste-55-degree-celsius-can-kill-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-234959 Check us out on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/stephenlegaree14 Webpage: www.albertaurbangarden.ca Google +: google.com/+StephenLegaree Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlbertaUrbanGarden Twitter: https://twitter.com/northern1485 Pintrest: http://www.pinterest.com/ABurbanGarden/

Comments

can i turn it into liquid

Well with CaCO3 (egg shell) + CH3COOH (White Vinegar) = Ca(CH3COO)2 + H2O + CO2. So yeah it check outs, water the byproduct and carbon dioxide with Calcium acetate "Ca(CH3COO)2" Cal-acetate is found in a lot of those tomatoes-pepper specialized liquid fertilizers :)

love to know a bit on what keeps best, how to store my harvest, what can be frozen in your freezer etc

Have you noticed any increase in wild bird life IN and around your garden. Their droppings are very good for your garden and if you can add a bird feeder close to or even over your compost so that their droppings can be added to that as well.

Could i use to egg shelves method for a house plant like a palm tree?

I bake my eggshells and then pulverize them in my vitamix. I just dust the ground around my plants when I'm done. They decompose quicker this way

composting Alfalfa....Alfalfa hay.....and or Alfalfa pellets.????

It has already been mentioned here, but - I usually hard boil my eggs so this would eliminate any salmonella risks I guess.

Could I use egg shelves for moulch? Or would they fly away?
I think the colour would look much nicer than the ordinary dark moulch.

You can just microwave the eggs for 3 minutes

Would cotton bloody tampons help fertilize organic gardens once a month?

I only use the eggs shells from hard-boiled eggs, and turn them to powder in my coffee grinder. Seems they would be much safer as well as being more readily available ....... what do you think?

Hi up there, I'm in Arizonan working on a problem with bottom end rot on peppers. With all this talk about egg shells I was wondering if using the oaster shells I give the chickens to make their egg shells strong would be another way to get calcium into an existing growing garden faster? Love your videos

Hi Stephen, this is the first of your videos I've seen. Excellent, immediate sub! So now I'll pester you... I live in Brittany, France, and one local resource is clam and mussel shells, of which there are hundreds of tons per year. Some bright spark recently had the idea that instead of sending to dumps he'd collect them, crush them and sell them as a natural calcium additive in agriculture. Good idea, no? They're harder to break than eggshells but 1 clamshell the size of a small hand is probably equal to 20 or more eggshells, so a bit of slogging with a heavy hammer might be worth it. Also I've built a couple of raised beds from local rocks and traditional lime mortar (builder's lime, sand and water). Some plants seem to want to grow as near to the wall as possible. I guess there's a calcium compound very slowly leeching from the mortar that's reducing local acidity and they like it.

what if you burn them with woodfire

"coffee grounds, tea leaves, (word i cant decipher), autumn leaves, etc..."

what was that word please?

Awesome Stephen! I haven't used any store bought fertilizer in 2 or so years, so thank you!

I dump each of my planting containers into a wheelbarrow in the early spring, and add some amendments to the spent soil. Once I add my spring amendments I cover my pots so that everything does not leach out of the pot before I plant in them. However, do you think I should add my ground eggshells in the fall so it can do some "composting" in the pot/bucket over winter?

I only save the eggshells from hard-boiled eggs. In the winter I put the eggshells in an aluminum pie plate, and set the pie plate on my heating register to dry quickly. In the warmer months I put the same pie plates out in direct sunlight to dry them out. When I get a goodly amount of the eggshells accumulated I turn them to powder in my coffee grinder. What do you think about doing the same thing with orange peels, and do you think my plants would benefit from the powdered orange peel? Thanks in advance. Oh btw, I also do the same thing with my banana peels.

What is the best way to make fertilizer or compost for acid loving plants such as blueberries?