Toss them in the compost without crushing them. They'll break down very slowly (so if you sift your compost you'll see them for a while), but they'll break down eventually. You can also just add them to the garden as is.

Lucky!! I collect eggshells whenever I can, pulverize them to dust in a grinder or mortar and pestle, and whenever I feed my worms, I add a nice sprinkle of the powdered eggshell for slow release calcium

I usually crush them in my hand once to make smaller pieces and toss in the compost. That's not that many in a big pile or bin. And don't worry about the membranes, they decompose leaving separate bits of shell. But you knew that.

(Hi. My name is Leslie, and I'm addicted to composting.)

For what it's worth, I also pulverize egg shells using a mortar and pestle, prior to adding them to the compost. I enjoy beating them into powder. I stockpile them. Collect them from the neighbors... but reserve the crushing of them for those very sacred occasions, when I'm under super-stress and need to relieve myself of frustration. The process moves very quickly under those circumstances. (Hence my having to beg for more from the neighbors.)

The beauty of it all, is that in powdered form...they just seem to vanish into the piles forever. When I sprinkle their remains into the piles, I like to imagine that my stress is disappearing into never-never land right along with them.

Leslie in CO.

I'd toss them into the compost bin.

Boy! I wish I had all those. I use mine in the compost pile but mainly around my Hosta's

l've been saving all our egg shells, drying them in the oven by pilot light
roughly crushing them by hand into a container
later, in a coffee grinder grind them into powder
and then add them to the tomato plants' soil

You could just as well add them to the worm bin, compost pile or any other soil.
(If added directly to the soil, you might want to adjust for an effect they may have on the ph)

Thanks, gang. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing some grand opportunity, since I had so many at one time. When I'm on the ball, I usually add about half of the crushed shells to the worm bin and the rest to the compost pile.

Leslie: I like the thought of pulverizing them -- mind telling where you got your mortar and pestle? Seems like that would be less messy than my shot glass/cutting board combo.

I just pitch them into the compost pile as is.

Turning the pile, when I do turn it, breaks them up a bit.

If they're still in large pieces when the compost is done they go into the garden and are tilled in that way.

Eventually they'll dissolve in my acid soil.

I like the sound egg shells make when I crush them.

I just crush them slightly in my hands, then add them to the pile.

If you want to crush those eggshells you might just use a rolling pin - do it on a large plastic bag for easy disposal to the compost. Otherwise just chuck 'em in the compost as is. That's mostly what we do altho sometimes I like to crush them in my hand. I actually like to see the bits in my garden.

I occasionally toss some crushed shells around my hostas. Maybe the slugs will get poked too much and go elsewhere?

(HI Leslie- this is the best enabling bunch there is :-))

Leslie,
you are so funny
I love to see you're posts!!!

did you check out BIM egg shells?

just what you are doing is great.
but you seem like a girl ready for a new experiment.

(Hope the gender thing is correct, I have a BIL named Les.)

when I was a girl my Daddy used to tell me...

" if you had a brain , you'd be dangerous"

meaning all enthusiasm and no direction.
(sigh)
I miss my Dad.

8 piles your 1st yr...
I'm totally impressed.

Laura

(Leslie here... addicted as always)

Wonderpets... I found a link on the 'Bed Bath and Beyond' website to a mortar and pestle set that's identical to the one I use. It's made of marble, and costs only 13 bucks. Here's the URL to that link...

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=10177863

BUT...they have another set, made of granite, which I think would work even better for eggshells.(Wider diameter, made of bulkier material, more spendy though) See...

http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=16041807

(I really like that one)

Whatever you do, make sure you get one that is hefty and has some serious weight to it. As thin as eggshells appear to be, it takes a surprising amount of force to beat them into actual dust after grinding them into tiny bits. Trust me, you want the heaviest and most durable material you can find. Natural stone works perfectly for this.

I can give you more tips on the fine art of pulverizing eggshells if you want. I squish them up in my hands first. Toss a few in the bowl, (don't fill it too full because you want them to be somewhat vulnerable to the hardness of the stone. Too many acts almost like a mattress) and start by grinding them into small bits. (This is like a rolling motion; you're just rubbing the surface of one stone against another stone, with egg shells in between.) Once I get them into smaller pieces, I continually shake the bowl back and forth horizontally across the counter; this brings the larger pieces up to the surface; the dusty stuff stays towards the bottom, acts as a buffer, (mattress) and allows you REALLY smack the bigger chunks HARD, without having to worry about striking stone against bare stone. Eggshells have no choice but to disintegrate upon sharp impact like this. (Yes, at this point, I basically hit them as I would with a hammer... so the 'mattress layer' protects the stone from any damage.) I probably wouldn't try this with ceramic material, definitely not glass... and I'm afraid metal might actually dent up from repetitive abuse of this nature. The marble one I use tolerates these beatings beautifully, with no ill effects whatsoever. I only wish the bowl was a little bigger, and also... fatter, heavier stone would just speed the process, and require less effort from whomever is doing the actual pulverizing.

Oh and Laura... you have me pegged. I'm up to my ears in 'experiments' around here. Of those eight piles, I've managed to keep 4 in the 125-150 degree range for almost two weeks now. They are melting amazingly fast... My plan is to 'process' the contents of four cold piles through the hot piles as they go down; adding greens, and minding my ratios as I go. AND no bad smells or anything! Truly, I having a blast with this forum and all my compost-related adventures!!! I've just finished sculpting a decent sized hole in the ground to use as a fire pit... because I feel convinced I can fill this hole with sand, line it with rocks, and and use it to make some version of 'bio-char'. I have buckets of experimental 'bug juice' brewing... molasses tea. I've been prowling around the national forest too, in search of indigenous bacteria. (People dump huge piles of yard wast out there too, which I've been more than happy to scoop up while I'm there.) I built a very cool sifting table, which so far... I've been using to sift old, partially decomposed wood/bark mulch, but soon will use it to sift compost also.

I've got one empty wire cage left, before I would need to cut into a new roll to make more. I've sworn to my boyfriend that I wouldn't keep more than these 9 bins going at once... but... you know how that goes. Found a source for free Alpaca poo yesterday... might be worth cutting into that new roll after all. :)

Leslie in CO

Or, you could try this with it. Lucky you to have so many!

this info snipped from "Indigenous Microorganisms:"
Gil A. Carandang
Herbana Farms
Burol, Calamba City
Laguna, Philippines

Sorry I have this in wordpad. I didn't copy the website .
---------------

"Calcium Phosphate
A lot of agriculture advisers have used calcium phosphate for better plant growth, health, pest and disease controls. Natural farmers use this bionutrient very specific. Under the theory of Nutrioperiodism developed by a Japanese horticulturist, Yasushi Inoue in the 1930s, 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."

I crunch my egg shells up a little and then sprinkle them around my lettuce and other greens to keep the slugs out.

cantstopgardening,
I use pine needles to mulch my hostas and the slugs don't bother them, they definately get poked.

Good gardening, Mary

I put my eggshells in a 6 cup sized plastic storage bowl (no lid) and don't even bother to dry them in the stove, just let them air dry. Then I use an aluminum meat tenderizer mallet to grind them into tiny pieces in that bowl. The pieces go into a brown paper lunch sack under my sink, to be either tossed into the compost bin, or worked directly into my tomato bed. They have definitely put the stop to the blossom end rot problem that I was having with my tomatoes! I have planted tomatoes in oak barrels in years past, and last year I made a raised bed for them. In both instances I had a lot of BER. So after our frost last year, and ripping up the old plants, I tossed in about 3 wheelbarrel loads of horse manure, lots of bags of dried leaves, old alfalfa and beet pulp pellets, shredded newsaper, and LOTS of crushed eggshells. I wet it and turned it about a dozen times over the winter. I cannot believe the size of my tomato plants this year!!! LOTS of tomatoes on them, too, and NO blossom end rot! I had my first bacon, lettuce, egg and tomato sandwich (with my own tomatoes) on Sunday. First day of summer, and first tomatoes ... can't beat that!

Freezing the shells also makes them crush really easy! I recently did a "breakfast" theme open house party. Cracked a lot of eggs. I heard my husband say "The worms are going to be heppy". :)

For the record, if you slow compost, consider leaving your eggshells relatively uncrushed. Worms like to hang out in close proximity to other worms, and eggshells make wonderful little worm caverns. The shells will break down as you turn your compost--it's not entirely necessary to pre-crush them.

I tried to ignore this thread, but cali has forced me to comment. For those of you with worm bins, you are depriving your worms of their all-time favorite thing with all your eggshell crushing---an eggshell half. If you don't believe me and cali, try it. Put an eggshell that has been spared your axe (or anvil or blender or other crushing equipment), into your bin, give it three weeks and then examine it. It will be filled with worms. Worms love to snuggle up in an eggshell.

If I, personally, had that many egg shells, I'd get my tail down to the grocery store and buy up all the Easter Egg dyeing stuff they had left on the shelves - even going so far as to ask the manager about the stash in the back room, and then I'd go home, dye them different colors, crush them into 1/4 inch size pieces, drag out the glue gun, and make mosaics on all my terra cotta pots.