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| I purchased a few bags of compost to top dress my rose garden with and the stuff had bits of sea shells in it. The product is called "Coast of Maine".
I would think it would take a long time to break them down in a pile but was curious to know if anyone had a view on this. |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| In a hot pile, they can be composted. Of course, crushing first helps. They may act as a slow liming agent if pieces remain intact- taking quite a long time to work. I have composted heavy clam shells, lobster shells, steamahs, shrimp shells, and a variety of other bivalves and oceanic insects. Heavy clam shells take longest, lobster, crab, and shrimp shells disintegrate quickly. |
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| I was at the garden center today and saw that they had bags of lobster compost which contained quantities of lobster shells amongst other things. In the bag of compost I mentioned earlier the shells were all broken up. |
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| Mussels and oysters stay around a long time. But I think they're quite decorative around the garden. |
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| Whenever I go to a local oyster bar I always ask for extra shells they have laying around. I usually get about 5 take out boxes packed full. I go home, boil, bleach soak, rinse and decorate the garden! |
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| I would not go to extra effort to add lots of shells to my home compost bin but I'm sure that compost comming from a facility that takes the waste off of a seafood processing would have lots of shells in it. Not a bad thing especially if you need some extra calcium or lime in your garden anyway. Some kinds of shells will definitely take a long time to compost since they are not so much organic anymore but mineralized and instead of composting, they are really just slowly dissolving. |
Here is a link that might be useful: My compost
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| Lots of things take a long time to decompose, but so what? You've got an eternity to make compost. I have tons of shells in my garden that came with my seaweed. If their whiteness offends me, and sometimes it does, I toss a trowel full of soil over them. Lobster shells, though, get a bad rap. They do not take as long to break down as people suppose they might. |
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| What I've found is that if they're right in the pile, crab shells don't take long (a couple seasons) to become crumbly, lobster shells next, oyster shells a long time after, and mussel shells are better for decorating the beds. |
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