1. Roast/toast eggshells.
2. Soak roasted eggshells in equal volume of vinegar for two weeks until the vinegar dissolves the eggshells.
3. Dilute 1:20 parts water and spray on plants or water into plants.
4. Note below that this is best used during a specific period in the plants growth, just before flowering/fruiting.

This is from the BIM piece posted on an earlier thread:

"Calcium Phosphate

A lot of agriculture advisers have used calcium phosphate for better plant growth, health, pest and disease controls. Natural farmers use this very specific bionutrient. 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.

Penny or any one else do you rinse them? I'm guessing an oven temp of at least 400f would be necessary.

It has crossed my mind to bake eggshells, but mostly to kill any salmonella that might be lurking about.

Are there any salmonella concerns with eggshells in compost?

Even if there were, I recently saw the statistic that only 1 in 30,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella. I wouldn't worry about it, myself.

Since I'm not in a composting race with anyone or anything, I don't think in terms of becoming sick of some compost component. I just toss them in the pile. If they don't compost, they can stay in the pile. Or maybe they end up in the garden. Either way is fine with me.

Peggy

Good gardening, Mary

Was that Worf?

Other ways to roast eggshells:

1. While cooking other things in the oven. (People still do use their ovens to prepare food.)

2.Wrapping in recycled aluminum foil and placing on the coals while grilling other food. Or, place them in a cast iron skillet, place that on coals or grate in grill. OR place eggshells in recycled aluminum foil and place in area where you are making biochar. Or place them in your fireplace/wood stove/cook stove if you are still in need of that in your zone.

3. Making an experimental solar oven just to test both theories...solar ovens and roasted eggshells to soak in vinegar.

Having said all that I don't know if roasted eggshells soaked in vinegar, diluted, and then sprayed on plants will work or not. I'm not even sure why it is recommended to toast them.

It seems that this same process would be happening:

"When you submerge an egg in vinegar, the shell dissolves. Vinegar contains acetic acid, which breaks apart the solid calcium carbonate crystals that make up the eggshell into their calcium and carbonate parts. The calcium ions (ions are atoms that are missing electrons) float free, while the carbonate goes to make carbon dioxide—the bubbles that you see."

So maybe just soaking those eggshells in vinegar, diluting that and using as a spray will be my next experiment.

Just sayin'.

Then I mix 1/4 cup or so with the home-made suet mixture for the birds. Provides the grit birds need for their gullets, and gives the females extra calcium during egg-laying season. The protein from any residue of egg whites or yolks is a bonus.

You can also spread them in a feeder area, people say they will eagerly eat the bits of eggshells.

Later, if I happen upon tiny bits of rusty eggshell in the garden, I think to myself, "Hmm. What nice looking compost you make, annpat. It was worth all your painstaking effort."

The spray is a dilution of the eggshell/vinegar mix. 1:20 ratio. Perhaps could even be diluted more.

Crushed eggshells are especially good for worm bins - for grit, calcium, raising pH.

ps do you think that if I mill the eggshells finely I could bake bread out of them and add that to my compost heap?

Chickens, as well as wild birds, like to eat crushed egg shells. It helps them replenish their calcium during periods of egg laying. Thick-shelled eggs won't break easily if accidently stepped on by the bird as she leaves the nest. A broken egg won't hatch..... so there's a bit of evolution going on with birds eating egg shells.

I am a bit wary of adding vinegar to the soil, even diluted.

Is it possible I could add something to the eggshell water after the shells have dissolved like baking soda in order to bring the pH closer to neutral? If so, are there any chemistry people out there who could tell me a ratio of vinegar to baking soda?

After bopping around the net this morning, I'm going out on a limb to suggest that the pH might be sort of neutral. I don't have any litmus paper to test my current little experiment here but here's what I found out:

The vinegar is acidic, the egg shell is alkaline. When the eggshell dissolves in the acid (I think you need more than 1 tsp--perhaps enough to cover your crushed eggshells) you are left with something called calcium acetate. (Free calcium ions floating around in the vinegar.) If left exposed to the air it will form crystals.

http://www.rocksforkids.com/RFK/Experiments.htm

When I looked up the pH of calcium acetate it was listed on one site as 7-8.

The link below is to a guy doing an "eggs-periment" on tv using hydrochloric acid to do the dissolving quickly. Not that we have or want to use HCI but fun to see, nonetheless.

It seems to me that if you release the pure calcium from the calcium carbonate of the eggshell and dilute it with water it would be more easily taken up by the plants.

P.S. All of my eggshells have gone/do go into the compost pile in an "as is" condition. They don't bother me at all. I got off on the dissolving thing as a possibility for someone who doesn't like seeing eggshells in their compost or in the garden.

1) Nobody here likes boiled eggs, and after looking enticing, there in their colorful array of greens and yellows and blues, not a one was consumed.

2) These eggs, two weeks ago, were the last ones on the grocery shelves when we were invited on the Sat to the Easter bash on the Sun, and were suspect re expiration date.

3) After hard boiling, they sure smelled of sulfur, bringing to mind that expiration date thing again.

4) I got easier ways of adding sulfur to my garden than stinky eggs - like from a sack full of sulfur.

5) You should have seen the size of the skunk on top the compost pile last evening.

Thanks Penny,

I think you might be right. I put a little vinegar in a container with my eggshells and they started dissolving for about a day. I've left it since Monday but there has been no further dissolving that I have been able to see. So tonight, I drained the vinegar off the eggshells and carefully mixed a little baking soda into it. Nothing, not even fizz. So I mixed a little more. Still nothing. The vinegar was cloudy and full of eggshell powder, I could see teeny tiny bits of the brown eggshells still.

I'm guessing that the eggshells did bring the vinegar to neutral and once it reached that state, the vinegar was not acid enough to keep dissolving the eggshells, and that's why baking soda would not even get it to bubble. Think I'm right?

I took that little bit of vinegar, mixed it with a full watering can of water, and put it on one of my garden beds. I've added more vinegar to the eggshells that were left over. They are now happily bubbling away and dissolving right before my eyes with the fresh vinegar.

But from what I understand, it takes over a year before that calcium becomes available to the plant. I have started on a new bed this year and want to give a try with having the calcium immediately available. It's mostly an experiment, I'm sure my garden will grow anyway. I just want to give it a try.

Lindag, you can certainly feed egg shells to your goats altho I wouldn't feed too many at a time and would dip them in boiling water first (eggshells, not goats). Back a few decades ago Adelle Davis, the guru of natural nutrition, suggested ground egg shells from hard cooked eggs be used in baby formula as a source of calcium.

Years ago when I had lots of house plants I used to soak eggshells in water and give the plants a treat. It was a bit smelly and I didn't use vinegar but it was supposed to be good for the plants.

I just played with all my compost today and there are still eggshells on the bottom layer from last year. Smashed a few with my shovel and ignored the rest!

I don't understand.

I put about 3 inches of crushed egg shells in a 1 gal ice cream bucket. Covered w/ apple cider vinegar. 2 weeks later, I still have alot of egg shells. Do I need to drain, save and repeat?

I've run into the same problem, the eggshells wouldn't dissolve. I drained them and diluted the vinegar and watered it into the raised bed, then tried it again with fresh vinegar. Still did not dissolve the shells so I drained, diluted and watered again, then I put the leftover eggshells into the compost. They were soft, but not dissolved.

Hopefully I pulled enough calcium out of them to have it available to the bed I watered this year.

Of course, I can't seem to find directions for this anywhere on the internet. (Darn those non-internet-using Ukrainian grannies!)

So maybe what's missing from this vinegar egg dissolving operation is mechanical abrasion?

I drained the shells and saved the used up vinegar. Put the shells on my pizza air pan

Baked it in the barbecue at 400° for about 20 minutes.

This time they were nice and charred, unlike the time I baked them in foil.

Next I added some new vinegar, and put it in an old blender we don't use any more to make the pieces much smaller. I used the blender out doors, whew it stunk!

Then put all this back in the ice cream bucket to sit for a few weeks.

Like I said, good thing the wife was out, cause it stunk!

Now sisnce I am eating eggs regularly I rarely have a dozen last more than a week.

Never knew egg shells could help as pest eradication. I assume the zapping/ baking/ toasting is ONLY for purposes of "sterilizing" the eggshell?

My grandmother used to save pickle juice and dump in in the soil under her hydrangeas to make them blue. She might not have known much about pH per se, but she knew that the vinegar in in pickle juice made the flowers blue.

Re: comments that egg shells don't raise help calcium level in the soil because it takes so long to work: who cares, if the option is to toss the shells in the garbage can.

Karen

That's what I put them in compost in the first place -- to create a texture that is unpleasant for slugs. The slower they decompost - the better!!!

Greg
Southern Nevada

on Wed, May 6, 09 at 11:16

@* petalpatsy TN7a...Fri, Apr 24, 09 at 14:06 " ... Was that Worf? ..."

"I don't understand."

Albert,

¿Can you spell S*T*A*R T*R*E*K ?

Worf: definition - fellow that can crumble eggshells with a look.

Terran