I use my eggshells by putting them in a blender to crush them down to fine powder. I put a couple of scoops in the planting hole for every tomato and pepper.
Actually, the calcium in the eggshell is released quite slowly over a prolonged period of time and is unavailable in a form that can be used by plants. It is therefore a common practice to break down the shells with a food blender, like how you have shown, and extract the calcium with home vinegar 15% (which has got acetic acid). There is an effervescent chemical reaction after adding the vinegar. This liquid is then allowed to sit 24 hrs before it can be used to fertilize plants.
I’ve been composting all my long life. Seems like a waste to wash the egg shells. The natural material in the shells is great for the soil, from what I’ve read. Great video.
Rinsing keeps the rats away if you live in the city. Before my dad rinsed his eggs, the rats would come for the shells. They won't if they get rinsed first.
I use finely ground egg shells as an added ingredient to my homeade soap to make a garden/mechanics soap. It's very similar to lava soap that had pumice in it.
One thing to keep in mind is that some plants love acid(think coffee grinds) and some like alkaline(eggshells) so you may want to add coffee too if you're amending your soil with eggshells... I believe potatoes like acid.
I never thought about using the half shells as seed starters. Very cool idea. When I grind my egg shells, I use a coffee bean grinder and grind them pretty fine. My worms love them and so does my garden.
Thats where ours go now. They love them. We do a fermented whole grain feed we mix ourselves so they probably don't need them but they prefer them to oyster shell.
Thank you! Only thing, make sure you tell everyone not to blend eggshells dry in a good blender with a plastic carafe. It can etch the plastic pretty bad. It happened to my Ninja. I've never done this method by adding water! Great idea! Thank you fellow Patriot!
My husband and I eat eggs everyday. (We didn’t get Covid.) First I put the egg shells in water with a drop of mild dish washing soap and a little vinegar. Then after a few days of collecting I dry them in the sun, put them in bread bags and when I have a full bag, I stomp on them to break them and sprinkle them around my plants. I give the water to my plants.
I dry them, use my electric grinder to a powder and spread it in garden ( I don’t drain the shells). Also if you spread it around your plants, it deters insects. It’s like glass to them that they avoid.
As well as using them for plant nutrition, I take a half of rinsed and dried egg shell, crushing it and put on top of the coffee for the next pot I brew. Great source of calcium and actually I think improves the taste of the coffee. Bonus👊🏼
Oh! I like the idea of starting seeds in them. :) I've been using my eggshells, too but, I have a slighlty differnet prep method. I let them dry out and drop them into my coffee grinder and save the bits in a plastic bin until spring.
Another option is to soak eggshells in vinegar to create Calcium Acetate - a form of calcium which plants absorb readily and can be stored indefinitely. It's easy to make and a little goes a long way. Recipes can be easily found but basically it involves browning the eggshells first.
@@garycarlson245 they don't get them whole, you grind and mix with oyster shell. I have barred rocks hens who could care less about the eggs, they don't even get broody. I think 1 egg per hen daily is pretty good.
I used to bake the shells when already using the oven to make them easier to crumble. The girls loved them. I also started a quart jar of sprouts every day for them in the winter. They gave us eggs year round in Michigan!
EGG-cellent idea for seed starting!!! 😎 I may use this idea for the potatoes chits I'm starting... Before I transplant to soil or bucket, or box. Haven't decided. I'm kinda new at gardening.
Another great way to get calcium, magnesium and phosphorus into your garden is if you have a local butcher to get animal bones from. You can burn the bones, and then collect the ash and bone fragments, break them up by putting them between a fold of a tarp and then stepping on them to break up the larger bone fragments, then you can add them to your garden :3 Also, adding egg shells and calcium to your garden will keep away dandelions, they don’t like too much calcium; so you won’t have to spend so much time weeding!
@@MargaretJEllis I actually like dandelions, if I have the energy I like to uproot them and use their roots to make dandelion coffee. I just don’t want them growing everywhere because I have a physical disability and working the ground gets pretty tough. :3
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My tree kale plants (from your seeds)are starting to get big. They survived a cold snap of 19° this past winter so I think I'm safe, it rarely gets that cold here.
We also grind our shells up bake them in the oven to dry them out and then throw them in the food processor and make them into a powder and use them in everything
I have been freeze drying eggs and have a lot of shells left over. I take the shells, wash them, heat in oven for 30 minutes or so to dry them and kill any pathogens, then grind them up and will put them in the soil when I plant my tomatoes.
@@noeldeal8087 To freeze dry the eggs I wash the eggs, scramble them then put about 14 scrambled eggs in each tray of my freeze dryer. It takes about 30 hours or so to freeze dry, then I scrape the dried eggs into a blender to break up and powder the eggs. Then I put the powder into Mason jars and seal them for long term storage.
@@ceepark114 May I bother you to ask one more question? Which freeze dryer do you have? Thanks. Also do you use a vacuum sealer? Too many choices these days...
@@noeldeal8087 I have one of the older Harvest Right freeze dryer. I do have a vacuum sealer also bought a few years back from Cabela's, their commercial model.
Brilliant... Wish I had chickens. 😢 I clean and bake my shells at 200 to 250° for half an an hour and grind in my coffee grinder and add to my coffee grinds before brewing. Buffers the acid of coffee and makes it delicious! ☕
I keep my egg shells in a juice container filled with water use the water on my house plants & my cactus garden , just keep filling container with water & eggshells keep it refrigeratored
I put my eggshells in the oven for about 5-10 minutes Then I take my coffee grounder and turn it into a powder. I plan on using that this year cuz I've saved up. I wanted to use it in my garden and in my pots.
Hello all ya'll. My Wife puts the egg shells in old baking loaf pans till she has two of them heaping full, then pops them into the oven and bake them at 275-300* F for 20 minutes, then shuts off the heat and let the shells sit in the oven till the oven cools down. Afterwards she will crush the shells.
I chuck my egg shells into the woods surrounding my house. I assume calcium is in high demand and low supply out there so I assume it goes to good use.
I raise layer chickens so I have an abundance of egg shells. I rinse the shells place them in a plastic grocery bag to dry and crush them with my hands. When the bag is full I spread the shells out in my greenhouse to kill any microbes and then after another crushing spread on top of mulch in my raised beds. It works great to keep the slugs off the plants as well as small rodents and snakes out. Nothing likes crawling over those crushed shells. Then at the end of the season I leave the shells to overwinter on top of the beds to break down a little and in Spring till them into the soils.
I never throw egg shells away. I dry them in a bowl then I break them down by hand. I love to feel the crushing of the shells , my kids like to do it too. Then I put them in a glass jar til I am ready to toss them in the garden or around different trees and plants.
I heard that egg shells take a hundred years to decompose. Unless you blend it up into very fine pieces it does not give your plants the beneficial calcium. It was so discouraging since I have always thought otherwise
Sorry for being skeptical. Doesn’t it take years for eggshell to break down? The plant will be long gone before it gets nutrients unless there is protein left on the shell. And the shell doesn’t drain. I think you also need to treat the shells w acid to make them bio available to tomatoes
I run my egg shells thru the microwave for 4-5 min then crush in coffee grinder and sprinkle in worm bin. The do have calcium and is good to put in soil for future years.
hi, love your stuff but, the egg shell as a potting aid will take years to break down. there is no need to take the liquid out of the ground up shells just pour both into compost etc. also put the ground up shells into the bottom of the tomato plant not a top feed. the roots suck it up.
@@kathynix6552 the bowl he is taking the egg shells from and adding to the blender is dry - there is no egg "whites" in there - it is the same bowl he used out in the sun
My kids throw them in the trash if they don't just leave them on the counter. For the last 10 years, I pull them out of the trash, dry, and grind up. I have ~25 lbs of egg shells now. It's awesome. They are much heavier than they look.
I use my eggshells by putting them in a blender to crush them down to fine powder. I put a couple of scoops in the planting hole for every tomato and pepper.
A sharing of very useful information, God has made everything reusable. We just need to discover. 👍 Keep it up!!!
Actually, the calcium in the eggshell is released quite slowly over a prolonged period of time and is unavailable in a form that can be used by plants. It is therefore a common practice to break down the shells with a food blender, like how you have shown, and extract the calcium with home vinegar 15% (which has got acetic acid). There is an effervescent chemical reaction after adding the vinegar. This liquid is then allowed to sit 24 hrs before it can be used to fertilize plants.
I’ve been composting all my long life. Seems like a waste to wash the egg shells. The natural material in the shells is great for the soil, from what I’ve read. Great video.
I would rinse if in were using a grinder.
@@sarahhoffman2934 I think it's okay if left to dry first
Rinsing keeps the rats away if you live in the city. Before my dad rinsed his eggs, the rats would come for the shells. They won't if they get rinsed first.
We just crunch in our hands and add to our garden or compost like our grandparents.
Mix them with old coffee grounds,and put them on roses--- they'll bloom so fulll you'd think they're fake!!!
I use finely ground egg shells as an added ingredient to my homeade soap to make a garden/mechanics soap. It's very similar to lava soap that had pumice in it.
Good info. Been adding egg shells to tomato plant soil, but see I could use them even more. 👍🏻
I have been saving my eggshels the whole winter and grind it and using it for this year.i have learned this tricks from my folks back in Philippines.
Nice job, lots of great ideas, I like the idea of putting them in the sun instead of the oven at 200 degrees. Less power consumption.
One thing to keep in mind is that some plants love acid(think coffee grinds) and some like alkaline(eggshells) so you may want to add coffee too if you're amending your soil with eggshells... I believe potatoes like acid.
I never thought about using the half shells as seed starters. Very cool idea. When I grind my egg shells, I use a coffee bean grinder and grind them pretty fine. My worms love them and so does my garden.
I love using a coffee grinder, but I always burn mine up quickly
Lot's of reasons why this is a bad idea.
That was great. Feed them back to your chickens, too.
Thats where ours go now. They love them. We do a fermented whole grain feed we mix ourselves so they probably don't need them but they prefer them to oyster shell.
Thank you! Only thing, make sure you tell everyone not to blend eggshells dry in a good blender with a plastic carafe. It can etch the plastic pretty bad. It happened to my Ninja. I've never done this method by adding water! Great idea! Thank you fellow Patriot!
The egg shells ground up very small, a good to put in your dogs food for the calcium.
My husband and I eat eggs everyday. (We didn’t get Covid.) First I put the egg shells in water with a drop of mild dish washing soap and a little vinegar. Then after a few days of collecting I dry them in the sun, put them in bread bags and when I have a full bag, I stomp on them to break them and sprinkle them around my plants. I give the water to my plants.
Thank you. I like that is so practical and non-mechanized. I dry herbs and vegetables in the sun.
I dry them, use my electric grinder to a powder and spread it in garden ( I don’t drain the shells). Also if you spread it around your plants, it deters insects. It’s like glass to them that they avoid.
I do too and I got Covid.
As well as using them for plant nutrition, I take a half of rinsed and dried egg shell, crushing it and put on top of the coffee for the next pot I brew. Great source of calcium and actually I think improves the taste of the coffee. Bonus👊🏼
And then you can compost the grounds - triple use. :)
I just said that in another spot. I do the same thing.
I have a big, wooden mortar and pestle. I just toss and crush as we eat eggs
Oh! I like the idea of starting seeds in them. :) I've been using my eggshells, too but, I have a slighlty differnet prep method. I let them dry out and drop them into my coffee grinder and save the bits in a plastic bin until spring.
I drill holes in the lid of a plastic container and sprinkle
Very nicely done! Thanks for all the info!
Love your videos! They are so informative and helpful.
Another option is to soak eggshells in vinegar to create Calcium Acetate - a form of calcium which plants absorb readily and can be stored indefinitely. It's easy to make and a little goes a long way. Recipes can be easily found but basically it involves browning the eggshells first.
You can feed some of the shells back to your chickens and it makes their eggshells hard
Great video thank you for the information 😊
Wow, Very helpful video! I'm working on reconditioning my soil.
Awesome trick with wetting the eggshells! Thank you for sharing!
wow. great gardening tips and timely, too.
You rock.GOD BLESS Y’ALL.
Great ideas and instructions. Will use these-- thanks! 👏🙂👍🥚🌿
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, great video. 🥰
Great video! Thanks!😊
All of my egg shells used to go in the garden. Now we have hens so they go back to them. We think its only fair😂
I do the same thing. I grind them and put in their feed
Thats a terrible habit for chickens to get into eating there shells there goes your eggs.
@@garycarlson245 they don't get them whole, you grind and mix with oyster shell. I have barred rocks hens who could care less about the eggs, they don't even get broody. I think 1 egg per hen daily is pretty good.
I used to bake the shells when already using the oven to make them easier to crumble. The girls loved them. I also started a quart jar of sprouts every day for them in the winter. They gave us eggs year round in Michigan!
You're right, only fair!
🐓🐣🥚🍳
My blendtec makes quick work of powdering egg shells, no water required
Well new information for me try to do that on my little garden, bless you.💞
Thank you for sharing this information with us
I’m gonna have to try that. Thanks. God bless.
I like the water while blending. I'll try that next time I grind my shells.
EGG-cellent idea for seed starting!!! 😎 I may use this idea for the potatoes chits I'm starting... Before I transplant to soil or bucket, or box. Haven't decided. I'm kinda new at gardening.
Thank you sir and GOD bless you
The pH of the castings is 7 (neutral). There may be other materials in the compost that are acidic and most veggies like it a little alkaline
Thank you so much this is such great in info😊
Thank you!
Another great way to get calcium, magnesium and phosphorus into your garden is if you have a local butcher to get animal bones from. You can burn the bones, and then collect the ash and bone fragments, break them up by putting them between a fold of a tarp and then stepping on them to break up the larger bone fragments, then you can add them to your garden :3
Also, adding egg shells and calcium to your garden will keep away dandelions, they don’t like too much calcium; so you won’t have to spend so much time weeding!
Too bad you don't like dandelions. Every part edible & healthy.
@@MargaretJEllis I actually like dandelions, if I have the energy I like to uproot them and use their roots to make dandelion coffee. I just don’t want them growing everywhere because I have a physical disability and working the ground gets pretty tough. :3
Best to test soil for phosphorus level before adding more. Runoff is extremely toxic to aquatic life.
Great content.. thankyou
I use egg shells everywhere. The combo of egg shells and demitasse earth is a super slug killer.
Thank you for highlighting my comment. Happy Easter, Happy Holidays, and Happy Whatever You Want To Celebrate!!!🦚🌻🐢🐰💛🧡❤💔💜💙💚🦋🐠😻🦩🐦🐐🍀💐🐞🌹🐝💂♀️💂♂️🐱🦄🌸🤎🦚🌻🐢🐰💛🧡❤💔💜💙💚🦋🐠😻🦩🐦🐐🍀💐🐞🌹🐝💂♀️💂♂️🐱🦄🌸
I think you mean Diatomaceous Earth or natural silica
I use my eggshells in my garden also very good nice I see the results every year I don't use them for seed starting pod s thou interesting
WOW THANKS, I'M GOING TO START SAVING MY SHELLS :) TC
Well done with this video ❤
My tree kale plants (from your seeds)are starting to get big. They survived a cold snap of 19° this past winter so I think I'm safe, it rarely gets that cold here.
Does he have a site where you can buy his seeds or how did you come by them. I would love to buy some of his seeds.
@@samanthawatts2733 He was selling them about a years or so back and I bought them.
@@jaylewis8789 thank you for the information.
Thank you
We also grind our shells up bake them in the oven to dry them out and then throw them in the food processor and make them into a powder and use them in everything
Yeah. No. 😮 don’t add to spaghetti 🍝
Temp and time?
@@adrienneb.4710 325 until they look like they are toasted.
I learned something. Thanks.
❤ gratitude.
i grind my eggshells and give a small amount under the roots when planting in garden
I have been freeze drying eggs and have a lot of shells left over. I take the shells, wash them, heat in oven for 30 minutes or so to dry them and kill any pathogens, then grind them up and will put them in the soil when I plant my tomatoes.
how do you freeze dry your eggs?
@@noeldeal8087 To freeze dry the eggs I wash the eggs, scramble them then put about 14 scrambled eggs in each tray of my freeze dryer. It takes about 30 hours or so to freeze dry, then I scrape the dried eggs into a blender to break up and powder the eggs. Then I put the powder into Mason jars and seal them for long term storage.
@@ceepark114 May I bother you to ask one more question? Which freeze dryer do you have? Thanks. Also do you use a vacuum sealer? Too many choices these days...
@@noeldeal8087 I have one of the older Harvest Right freeze dryer. I do have a vacuum sealer also bought a few years back from Cabela's, their commercial model.
@@ceepark114 Thank you, Cee. 🙋🏻♀️🤗🌺
Ph scale range : 1-14, where (6)7(8) is considered neutral. 1-6 is the acidic scale , 7 considered neutral, 8-14 is the alkaline scale.
Brilliant... Wish I had chickens. 😢 I clean and bake my shells at 200 to 250° for half an an hour and grind in my coffee grinder and add to my coffee grinds before brewing. Buffers the acid of coffee and makes it delicious! ☕
I grind my eggshells so they decompose faster. Make great ground markers too, paths, rows, etc.
I have been blending eggshells with water, banana peels, and coffee grounds. What do you think?
I like to grind mine into powder and add it to a smoothie for a boost of calcium.
I crumple my shells up and throw them in used coffee grounds in a empty coffee canister until I'm ready to use the combo in garden during seeding.
I keep my egg shells in a juice container filled with water use the water on my house plants & my cactus garden , just keep filling container with water & eggshells keep it refrigeratored
Can you use store bought egg shells?
Genius!!!!!!!
Can you use these egg shells around garlic bulbs that you start?
Hi Could I buy some seeds from your tree kale?
I put my eggshells in the oven for about 5-10 minutes Then I take my coffee grounder and turn it into a powder. I plan on using that this year cuz I've saved up. I wanted to use it in my garden and in my pots.
I've been doing that for years. I put my washed shells in the oven on a cookie sheet for 5 minutes at 325.
Hello all ya'll. My Wife puts the egg shells in old baking loaf pans till she has two of them heaping full, then pops them into the oven and bake them at 275-300* F for 20 minutes, then shuts off the heat and let the shells sit in the oven till the oven cools down. Afterwards she will crush the shells.
I chuck my egg shells into the woods surrounding my house. I assume calcium is in high demand and low supply out there so I assume it goes to good use.
Thx ❤
My Mom would always save the eggshells for her garden.
Lots of potassium for your garden/house plants
A great list of alternative uses for the egg shells.
I raise layer chickens so I have an abundance of egg shells. I rinse the shells place them in a plastic grocery bag to dry and crush them with my hands. When the bag is full I spread the shells out in my greenhouse to kill any microbes and then after another crushing spread on top of mulch in my raised beds. It works great to keep the slugs off the plants as well as small rodents and snakes out. Nothing likes crawling over those crushed shells. Then at the end of the season I leave the shells to overwinter on top of the beds to break down a little and in Spring till them into the soils.
If you have chickens feed the shells right back to them. They need calcium for laying so many eggs and you wont need to buy it for them.
I never throw out egg shells, variety of uses and they are calcium
we eat lots of eggs and drink plenty of coffee i just toss both in my garden along with vegtable peelings ect. ive got a garden full of worms .
I never throw egg shells away. I dry them in a bowl then I break them down by hand. I love to feel the crushing of the shells , my kids like to do it too. Then I put them in a glass jar til I am ready to toss them in the garden or around different trees and plants.
Also toilet rolls can be used this way
I heard that egg shells take a hundred years to decompose. Unless you blend it up into very fine pieces it does not give your plants the beneficial calcium. It was so discouraging since I have always thought otherwise
@ kim's Kluckers
They decompose quickly. Will STOP Blossom End rot on Tomatoes. Blossom end rot means the plants lack calcium
MARAVILHA gostei muito obrigada por compartilhar!!
Sou do Brasil 🇧🇷🇧🇷😗
My local donut shop throws away massive amounts of egg shells
If you don't have a food processor or blender,, using your hand or fist to crush the shells works too
Crushing egg shells can be done just as easily by hand. No mention here of keeping molluscs away from plants...
That's great
I peel out the sac from the insides before feeding back to the hens because they could choke on the sac.
Worm bin. It gets turned into grit.
Edit: I haven't added water to it like that, that would help keep the powderiness down.
Sorry for being skeptical. Doesn’t it take years for eggshell to break down? The plant will be long gone before it gets nutrients unless there is protein left on the shell. And the shell doesn’t drain. I think you also need to treat the shells w acid to make them bio available to tomatoes
I feed them right back to my chickens alot of the time.
I run my egg shells thru the microwave for 4-5 min then crush in coffee grinder and sprinkle in worm bin. The do have calcium and is good to put in soil for future years.
hi, love your stuff but, the egg shell as a potting aid will take years to break down. there is no need to take the liquid out of the ground up shells just pour both into compost etc. also put the ground up shells into the bottom of the tomato plant not a top feed. the roots suck it up.
Wow! I never knew. Guess I wont be throwing away my egg shells in the future.
why did you dry the egg shells just to add water to them to crush them up??
He didn’t dry those ones. They went into the blender with the shiny egg white in them
@@kathynix6552 the bowl he is taking the egg shells from and adding to the blender is dry - there is no egg "whites" in there - it is the same bowl he used out in the sun
Actually they attract critters like Raccoons and such.
My kids throw them in the trash if they don't just leave them on the counter. For the last 10 years, I pull them out of the trash, dry, and grind up. I have ~25 lbs of egg shells now. It's awesome. They are much heavier than they look.
Considering unpulverized eggshells take up to two years to break down, using them as seed starters probably isn't a good thing to do.
How do you get the egg shell to break evenly in half?
Smacking it with a table knife edge when cracking them gives you a straighter line across. Good luck .
I save all my egg shells, toast them in low heat until golden, then pulverize like dust and mix it in with the soil for faster absorption.
I used a plastic blender and it scratched it terribly. No water.