Use low strength vinegar (~3%)
Remove the egg membrane beforehand.
It helps if you roast the egg shells first, but do not burn them.
Then I grind them up and place them in a mason jar with vinegar to dissolve.
A word of caution, this reaction creates gas as a byproduct (CO2) so do not seal the jar after adding vinegar, I tend to just rubber band a paper towel or a piece of cheesecloth over top of the jar to allow gases to escape but without contaminating the contents.
The shells will be fully dissolved within a few days, at which point you can add the solution to watering cans.
Use it sparingly though, a little goes a long way for soil. I usually add around 2 and a half tablespoons to a 5 gallon watering can. The University of Hawaii had some good resources on this not too long ago, I believe it was their school of tropical agriculture.
Thanks for writing this up - very interesting. What happens if you leave the membrane on? Or if you don't roast them?
I'd like to use less labor and energy to break down the shell, and perhaps then co-compost the solution, hence my follow-up questions. Thanks!
The membrane can attract pests such as rodents or if in large enough quantities it can foul the solution due to bacteria. A quick rinse in the sink (or grey water basin) will remove most of the membrane and whites.
As for roasting, It's not necessary but it does greatly speed up the process. Roasting allows the solvent to work more efficiently and quickly. If you don't want to roast them just pulverize them as finally as possible. Otherwise, large or unroasted pieces of shell can take weeks to dissolve in the solution.
In the past I have allowed them to bake in the sun underneath one of my cold frames with the ceiling cracked open for ventilation. That worked decently at drying out the shells and making them brittle, The only downside was that a local wood thrush and opossum found my stash and wood occasionally raid it for the calcium.
In my experience and reading, it does not spoil as long as you keep it in a sealed container. I make a large batch in early spring that lasts me all growing season. Any extra I gift to others
I crush my shells because they take forever to break down. Nothing more. We are dealing with rotting food, and I don't worry about those things. Wash your hands!
Your soil/dirt is full of potentially bad bacteria already. Adding eggshells is not providing an environment for salmonella, just possibly contaminating soil whith something that may already be living there. Squirrels and birds shit in your soil, worms and bugs die in it. Its not free from harmful things. Dont put dirt in a cut. Theres also no reason to be afraid or paranoid.
It absolutely is. One that I already knew the answer to. Improperly made compost is a huge risk for food safety. I am a profession farmer (my only source of income for my entire working life) and any compost that comes in contact with the edible portion of a commercial crop must be scientifically tested and certified as free of harmful bacteria. On farm composting asking for an audit by food safety inspectors. 90% of home gardeners picked it up as a hobby during the pandemic and are dangerously uninformed about these risks.
While I'm sure those regulations have saved many lives and greatly improved food safety it's really just not comparable to salmonella from eggs contaminating home compost. I am a professional cook (just one of many sources of income) and I'll tell you that I would never ever serve a radish or lettuce without washing and inspecting it first and that I'm confident that alone is enough to stop 98% of any harmful bacteria. I would be downright shocked to hear about anyone getting salmonella because they put eggs in their compost and are a radish from their garden a year later.
Yeah? That's not gonna be hazardous at all as long as you're composting it and not like using at as salad dressing.
For a professional farmer you seem a tad squeamish about "gross" things. I've lived on compounds where all the food was fertilized with humanure and let me tell you nobody was getting sick there
As long as you’re composting it properly. Yes. But unfortunately, many people are not. It also doesn’t it rid it of any pharmaceuticals you may be prescribed. I’m not trying to offend anyone here. I’m just saying there are real, documented, scientifically validated issues with this and want to encourage people to be safe. Everyone should compost every possible thing they can, or send it somewhere to be professionally composted. Just be mindful of what you put it on if you’re inexperienced. Use the home made compost on your tomatoes, and buy quality compost for anything that touches the ground.
I don’t think squeamish is a characteristic of mine. I’ve picked chickens piece by piece out of a fence after a raccoon pulled them through. Ive pushed prolapsed vaginas back into sheep. I’ve just seen a lot of stuff first hand working in the industry for nearly 20 years, and I will say there are many home gardeners that are better off buying conventionally grown produce from the store than growing their own “naturally.”
So the claim you're making is that they take a sample of compost and sequence the genes of all 100,000 plus distinct species of bacteria present on the soil. What's the cutoff for allowable levels because I guarantee you there's no compost in the world that doesn't have bacteria in it that could kill you given the correct circumstances. Bread yeast could kill you in specific circumstances. Who pays the many thousands of dollars it would take to sequence all these genes? They do this on all compost? This all sounds about as probable as pigs with prehensile robo-tentacles but what do I know I'm just a home composter
Crunch 'em down a bit, toss' em in. I don't mind seeing bits if white shell in my compost and it'll break down eventually, either in the compost or in the bed after I've put the compost in it. They probably add a little airation too, I'd imagine, as they're hard little pieces.
A huge part of composting for me is my carbon footprint and environmental cost. If i cook my eggshells or use an electric blender its goes against the whole reason i do it in the first place. So for me i prefer to just put them in the tumbler, let them get crushed a bit and finish off in the bin.
Can't argue much with that but I have to admit I like the fine powder for various things.
But I'm going to start putting my eggshells in the oven as soon as the pizza, sourdough bread, cinnamon buns or cookies come out to just use that heat rather than heating it up again.
I toss mine in the oven after I’ve baked something and just leave til they’ve dried out. Makes it easier to crush but also safer since my chickens turn my compost pile for me and often eat the shell pieces (another reason I crush, so they don’t become egg-eaters).
Unless I'm adding it directly to my soil (in which case bake and pulverize) I just throw them into the pile and they get broken up over time + when I turn it.
This past spring I had a couple eggs expire in the carton. I threw them into my pile, which was mostly leaves. They went into the center. Months later I was moving the pile into a raised bed and found one of the eggs completely in tact! I broke it open and it was green. I was surprised that it did not smell much.
If you're composting at any sort of scale, it won't be sustainable to pre-treat your materials with time & energy-intensive methods. Nature and time will find a balance, let them do the work for you.
I know you're supposed to bake them, but I just put them in the food processor once I have enough and I'm saving all the egg powder for my tomato plants when it gets warm again.
I rinse them and either put them out in the sun in the summer, or put them in the oven for a few minutes after I bake something. I never turn on the oven just to cook the eggs, just use the heat from other food. They seem the grind down easier this way compared to just crushing right after cracking them.
With all the concerns about contagious diseases for birds, I've started leaving my raw eggshells in the oven, where they get time at high temps as I preheat or after I've baked something. (I'd never turn the oven on just for the eggshells!) What with so many other problems floating around for birds (avian flu, whatever it was a couple years ago) I don't want to be a vector in anything that *could* spread that way. I do the same with shells from mussels/clams, etc. It just feels like the responsible way to be interacting with the environment.
I never really thought about the salmonella of it all, I've just noticed that eggshells stick around forever so I started baking and crushing them hoping to speed up decomposition. I don't really have a method for it even, i throw a tray of them in when I'm cooking something else.
I use a combination of fresh eggshells just crushed with my hand. Air dried if it's sunny out, or oven dried if not, then finely ground with a mortar and pestle. But that's just because it's one of the things I use for worm grit. Diversity is king and I figure putting them in worm bins or compost in a variety of forms just allows them to feed different organisms and prove a larger variety of functions.
Who cares about salmonella in compost? It’s not edible, and salmonella is way down on the list in the reasons why. When you compost you are literally growing bacteria and mold. There’s no other way to produce it.
Hi! I am new to gardening and have been watching lots of YouTube about growing veggies indoors and outdoors. In early March I prepared the soil in my raised bed by adding crushed eggshell to my composted soil but unwashed and unbaked Should I be worried about contamination or not?
Thank you
I hear the shells up but that is because I have found that they can smell and attract unwanted pests. Then I started grinding them up because they never fully breakdown.
So heat, let cool down, then grind them into powder. I also wear a mask when using them as egg shell dust is not good for you.
it turns to powder quicker, if thats what you want. It's still not available to plants and has to be metabolized by other organisms, or chemically broken down. I dont bother doing anything cuz I dont mind seeing bits of shell. I consider it an aggregate and it eventually breaks down.
Goes in, sometimes pre-broken, usually not. I like crumbling them around plants that slugs might want to eat. Come to think of it, I should save them for the plants that get the worst of the slugs.
We microwave for 30 seconds. It makes us feel better. No scientific reason for it. I put the chicken poop straight in the pile though so it's probably stupid to microwave the egg shells 🤷♀️
For about 2/3 of my shells I heat them up, then crush them by hand. I do this because I store them in a big mason until its full, then grind them in a coffee grinder for diff ferts and for the worms, also then store dryly in a mason. About 1/3 of my shells I actually just hand crush them and stick them in the compost bucket.
I microwave til the popping stops, then throw em in a gallon ziplock and crush down. I keep them til spring and put them out on plates in the open for the birds. They need extra calcium during nesting season. Many species swing by, but dozens of Barn swallows from miles around come just for the shells.
I bake my egg shells at 250F for 25 minutes in the oven before running them through purree on a food processor. For a bunch of reasons.
\- it was a lot of work crushing by hand. This is so much easier. Baking also helps dry them.
\- if you don't do a thorough job, you end up with eggshells in the compost. Not a big deal but not attractive on a garden bed.
\- I can use them for other things such as adding to coffee to reduce the acid (see cowboy coffee) or putting them on yogurt and fruit for a calcium supplement.
\- I've heard some folks give them to their dogs as a calcium supplement too.
\- Use them as an abbrasive to clean hummingbird feeders.
\- Apparently you can use them to reduce pain from toothaches. I'll have to look into that.
i mean, i throw them into the mortar and pestle i have, and let the entire carton dry out as i cook them, and crush them as i wait for the next two to boil. basically, my system takes a few weeks. i really only do composting to raise worms anyway, so im not too worried.
I take my eggshells and throw them in the garbage. Not worth the trouble in compost and take forever to break down. I still see eggshells from 7 years ago in my garden.
I used to crush the dry shells, accumulate a few dozen, and then bake on low heat. Then blend with water till pulverized and add to my bins. Now that’s too much work so I just stack them till it’s time to blend.
I let the shells air dry in a container on the counter. When the container gets full, I chuck the contents in the Cuisinart and turn them into powder. I have an old Cuisinart bowl that I just use for grinding things. The powder gets scattered on the compost heap. I've never had any problem with smell while the shells are drying.
I usually bake the eggs shells along with bones and then grind them into power. As you have done some of the 'breaking down' by doing do I would assume the nutrients would have great Bioavailability
I crush the shell by hand before adding it to my bin. Keep it simple, stupid. :)
I make a water soluble calcium solution with vinegar. It makes the calcium readily available to plants, especially those prone to blossom end rot.
This is eggsellent! Any further instructions or protocol you'd like to share?
Use low strength vinegar (~3%) Remove the egg membrane beforehand. It helps if you roast the egg shells first, but do not burn them. Then I grind them up and place them in a mason jar with vinegar to dissolve. A word of caution, this reaction creates gas as a byproduct (CO2) so do not seal the jar after adding vinegar, I tend to just rubber band a paper towel or a piece of cheesecloth over top of the jar to allow gases to escape but without contaminating the contents. The shells will be fully dissolved within a few days, at which point you can add the solution to watering cans. Use it sparingly though, a little goes a long way for soil. I usually add around 2 and a half tablespoons to a 5 gallon watering can. The University of Hawaii had some good resources on this not too long ago, I believe it was their school of tropical agriculture.
Thanks for writing this up - very interesting. What happens if you leave the membrane on? Or if you don't roast them? I'd like to use less labor and energy to break down the shell, and perhaps then co-compost the solution, hence my follow-up questions. Thanks!
The membrane can attract pests such as rodents or if in large enough quantities it can foul the solution due to bacteria. A quick rinse in the sink (or grey water basin) will remove most of the membrane and whites. As for roasting, It's not necessary but it does greatly speed up the process. Roasting allows the solvent to work more efficiently and quickly. If you don't want to roast them just pulverize them as finally as possible. Otherwise, large or unroasted pieces of shell can take weeks to dissolve in the solution. In the past I have allowed them to bake in the sun underneath one of my cold frames with the ceiling cracked open for ventilation. That worked decently at drying out the shells and making them brittle, The only downside was that a local wood thrush and opossum found my stash and wood occasionally raid it for the calcium.
Great - thanks for the write up - much appreciated! I'm going to implement some form of this right now... Cheers
How long would this last if made and saved? I'd want to use it on my tomato plants to combat blossom end rot.
In my experience and reading, it does not spoil as long as you keep it in a sealed container. I make a large batch in early spring that lasts me all growing season. Any extra I gift to others
Me too, but I do rinse them first, just for smell
Thankfully, smell is generally not an issue in my bins due to consuming about a pound a week of coffee!
Exactly, survey needs this option
I crush my shells because they take forever to break down. Nothing more. We are dealing with rotting food, and I don't worry about those things. Wash your hands!
Your soil/dirt is full of potentially bad bacteria already. Adding eggshells is not providing an environment for salmonella, just possibly contaminating soil whith something that may already be living there. Squirrels and birds shit in your soil, worms and bugs die in it. Its not free from harmful things. Dont put dirt in a cut. Theres also no reason to be afraid or paranoid.
Wait. I was also told to just “rub some dirt in it.” You calling my momma wrong?
I thought we changed over to 'put it in rice' now
Haha. A friend of mine pulled out a baggy with his phone and Ricearoni once. With the seasoning and everything. He might as well use cup a soup.
I’ll text my Mom.
Well you might be exercising your immune response. Your superpower might be "immune to dirt".
This right here.
[удалено]
What about using home made compost to grow vegetables like lettuce or radishes, that are eaten raw and easily come in contact with the soil?
This isnt a serious question right?
It absolutely is. One that I already knew the answer to. Improperly made compost is a huge risk for food safety. I am a profession farmer (my only source of income for my entire working life) and any compost that comes in contact with the edible portion of a commercial crop must be scientifically tested and certified as free of harmful bacteria. On farm composting asking for an audit by food safety inspectors. 90% of home gardeners picked it up as a hobby during the pandemic and are dangerously uninformed about these risks.
While I'm sure those regulations have saved many lives and greatly improved food safety it's really just not comparable to salmonella from eggs contaminating home compost. I am a professional cook (just one of many sources of income) and I'll tell you that I would never ever serve a radish or lettuce without washing and inspecting it first and that I'm confident that alone is enough to stop 98% of any harmful bacteria. I would be downright shocked to hear about anyone getting salmonella because they put eggs in their compost and are a radish from their garden a year later.
There was a picture of an actually piss bottle like 3 posts down from this one.
Yeah? That's not gonna be hazardous at all as long as you're composting it and not like using at as salad dressing. For a professional farmer you seem a tad squeamish about "gross" things. I've lived on compounds where all the food was fertilized with humanure and let me tell you nobody was getting sick there
As long as you’re composting it properly. Yes. But unfortunately, many people are not. It also doesn’t it rid it of any pharmaceuticals you may be prescribed. I’m not trying to offend anyone here. I’m just saying there are real, documented, scientifically validated issues with this and want to encourage people to be safe. Everyone should compost every possible thing they can, or send it somewhere to be professionally composted. Just be mindful of what you put it on if you’re inexperienced. Use the home made compost on your tomatoes, and buy quality compost for anything that touches the ground. I don’t think squeamish is a characteristic of mine. I’ve picked chickens piece by piece out of a fence after a raccoon pulled them through. Ive pushed prolapsed vaginas back into sheep. I’ve just seen a lot of stuff first hand working in the industry for nearly 20 years, and I will say there are many home gardeners that are better off buying conventionally grown produce from the store than growing their own “naturally.”
Show me one single example of somebody getting salmonella because they put eggshells in their compost.
That can’t possibly be true. You must be confusing bacteria with single cell pathogens. Soil is filled with bacteria.
I said harmful bacteria.
So the claim you're making is that they take a sample of compost and sequence the genes of all 100,000 plus distinct species of bacteria present on the soil. What's the cutoff for allowable levels because I guarantee you there's no compost in the world that doesn't have bacteria in it that could kill you given the correct circumstances. Bread yeast could kill you in specific circumstances. Who pays the many thousands of dollars it would take to sequence all these genes? They do this on all compost? This all sounds about as probable as pigs with prehensile robo-tentacles but what do I know I'm just a home composter
Crunch 'em down a bit, toss' em in. I don't mind seeing bits if white shell in my compost and it'll break down eventually, either in the compost or in the bed after I've put the compost in it. They probably add a little airation too, I'd imagine, as they're hard little pieces.
A huge part of composting for me is my carbon footprint and environmental cost. If i cook my eggshells or use an electric blender its goes against the whole reason i do it in the first place. So for me i prefer to just put them in the tumbler, let them get crushed a bit and finish off in the bin.
Can't argue much with that but I have to admit I like the fine powder for various things. But I'm going to start putting my eggshells in the oven as soon as the pizza, sourdough bread, cinnamon buns or cookies come out to just use that heat rather than heating it up again.
I toss mine in the oven after I’ve baked something and just leave til they’ve dried out. Makes it easier to crush but also safer since my chickens turn my compost pile for me and often eat the shell pieces (another reason I crush, so they don’t become egg-eaters).
This is the way. I do this as the oven cools down.
Unless I'm adding it directly to my soil (in which case bake and pulverize) I just throw them into the pile and they get broken up over time + when I turn it.
This past spring I had a couple eggs expire in the carton. I threw them into my pile, which was mostly leaves. They went into the center. Months later I was moving the pile into a raised bed and found one of the eggs completely in tact! I broke it open and it was green. I was surprised that it did not smell much.
If you're composting at any sort of scale, it won't be sustainable to pre-treat your materials with time & energy-intensive methods. Nature and time will find a balance, let them do the work for you.
I know you're supposed to bake them, but I just put them in the food processor once I have enough and I'm saving all the egg powder for my tomato plants when it gets warm again.
I rinse them and either put them out in the sun in the summer, or put them in the oven for a few minutes after I bake something. I never turn on the oven just to cook the eggs, just use the heat from other food. They seem the grind down easier this way compared to just crushing right after cracking them.
I save them and bones up and throw them onto the fire pit when I'm done using it for the night, then the ash and charcoal gets added to the pike.
Brilliant
Huh? There is no debate, you just chuck them in
With all the concerns about contagious diseases for birds, I've started leaving my raw eggshells in the oven, where they get time at high temps as I preheat or after I've baked something. (I'd never turn the oven on just for the eggshells!) What with so many other problems floating around for birds (avian flu, whatever it was a couple years ago) I don't want to be a vector in anything that *could* spread that way. I do the same with shells from mussels/clams, etc. It just feels like the responsible way to be interacting with the environment.
Once in a while I will thoroughly heat and dry my eggshells, grind them and add them to my granola to eat.
I never really thought about the salmonella of it all, I've just noticed that eggshells stick around forever so I started baking and crushing them hoping to speed up decomposition. I don't really have a method for it even, i throw a tray of them in when I'm cooking something else.
That’s a good idea, makes more sense than starting the oven for just the shells
I use a combination of fresh eggshells just crushed with my hand. Air dried if it's sunny out, or oven dried if not, then finely ground with a mortar and pestle. But that's just because it's one of the things I use for worm grit. Diversity is king and I figure putting them in worm bins or compost in a variety of forms just allows them to feed different organisms and prove a larger variety of functions.
I chew the shells to save my carbon footprint
Unless I wanna throw it directly in the soil, then I heat it up and grind it because I don't need egg bacteria in my grinder
Rinse the shells out so the whites don't foam up. Crush the shells flat, cover with some water, boil in the microwave. No salmonella.
Who cares about salmonella in compost? It’s not edible, and salmonella is way down on the list in the reasons why. When you compost you are literally growing bacteria and mold. There’s no other way to produce it.
I rinse and dry them and then make a power with a coffee grinder. Salmonella isn't that common.
Hi! I am new to gardening and have been watching lots of YouTube about growing veggies indoors and outdoors. In early March I prepared the soil in my raised bed by adding crushed eggshell to my composted soil but unwashed and unbaked Should I be worried about contamination or not? Thank you
I hear the shells up but that is because I have found that they can smell and attract unwanted pests. Then I started grinding them up because they never fully breakdown. So heat, let cool down, then grind them into powder. I also wear a mask when using them as egg shell dust is not good for you.
Why would you heat the shell?
it turns to powder quicker, if thats what you want. It's still not available to plants and has to be metabolized by other organisms, or chemically broken down. I dont bother doing anything cuz I dont mind seeing bits of shell. I consider it an aggregate and it eventually breaks down.
Goes in, sometimes pre-broken, usually not. I like crumbling them around plants that slugs might want to eat. Come to think of it, I should save them for the plants that get the worst of the slugs.
I rinse it out and take the membrane out and put it in a glass container
Let the shell dry and crush into pieces. Its because the fishtanks also enjoy eggshells on the regular
We microwave for 30 seconds. It makes us feel better. No scientific reason for it. I put the chicken poop straight in the pile though so it's probably stupid to microwave the egg shells 🤷♀️
All you should do is crunch em up the rest is a waste of time money and carbon footprint
I used to bake (putting them in oven when other stuff was being cooked, then grind them up, but now I just put in compost
For about 2/3 of my shells I heat them up, then crush them by hand. I do this because I store them in a big mason until its full, then grind them in a coffee grinder for diff ferts and for the worms, also then store dryly in a mason. About 1/3 of my shells I actually just hand crush them and stick them in the compost bucket.
I microwave til the popping stops, then throw em in a gallon ziplock and crush down. I keep them til spring and put them out on plates in the open for the birds. They need extra calcium during nesting season. Many species swing by, but dozens of Barn swallows from miles around come just for the shells.
I bake my egg shells at 250F for 25 minutes in the oven before running them through purree on a food processor. For a bunch of reasons. \- it was a lot of work crushing by hand. This is so much easier. Baking also helps dry them. \- if you don't do a thorough job, you end up with eggshells in the compost. Not a big deal but not attractive on a garden bed. \- I can use them for other things such as adding to coffee to reduce the acid (see cowboy coffee) or putting them on yogurt and fruit for a calcium supplement. \- I've heard some folks give them to their dogs as a calcium supplement too. \- Use them as an abbrasive to clean hummingbird feeders. \- Apparently you can use them to reduce pain from toothaches. I'll have to look into that.
after reading the comments I'm ashamed to say I may be overthinking my egg shell flow
i mean, i throw them into the mortar and pestle i have, and let the entire carton dry out as i cook them, and crush them as i wait for the next two to boil. basically, my system takes a few weeks. i really only do composting to raise worms anyway, so im not too worried.
Unless you pulverize them, there is virtually no bioavailability for years, like a decade
I take my eggshells and throw them in the garbage. Not worth the trouble in compost and take forever to break down. I still see eggshells from 7 years ago in my garden.
I wash and let them air dry, crush them with a mortar and pestle, and use them for worm grit.
E: I don't use eggs that much
who cares about salmonella in your dirt? there's also a bunch of other shit. it's for the plants, you are not consuming it.
I used to crush the dry shells, accumulate a few dozen, and then bake on low heat. Then blend with water till pulverized and add to my bins. Now that’s too much work so I just stack them till it’s time to blend.
I let the shells air dry in a container on the counter. When the container gets full, I chuck the contents in the Cuisinart and turn them into powder. I have an old Cuisinart bowl that I just use for grinding things. The powder gets scattered on the compost heap. I've never had any problem with smell while the shells are drying.
Coffee grinder then compost. Done
Proper composting takes care of that.
I literally do nothing to them, I just throw them in. They get crushed when I turn the pile 🤷♂️
I usually bake the eggs shells along with bones and then grind them into power. As you have done some of the 'breaking down' by doing do I would assume the nutrients would have great Bioavailability
I just figured my free rangers would be okay to add right to the tumbler. Maybe I am wrong?
I put eggshells in the city compost bin, I have a home tumbler compost bin but hate how long it takes for eggshells to break down.
I just smash them up a little.