Eggshells won't work miracles, as it takes a long time for the calcium in them to become available to plants, even when pulverized.

It's actually pretty rare for soils to have calcium deficiency. A soil test can help determine whether you even need calcium amendment, but if your soil is deficient and the deficiency is causing problems, eggshell will take too long to fix it.

Blossom end-rot is almost always a problem of water uptake, not of calcium deficiency.

Disclaimer: I add eggshell to my soil and feed them to my worm bin because I don't like to waste them. But I consider it a long-term amendment with the expectation that they'll contribute minerals over the years.

I agree with gorbelly. Put them down this year and they will work next year!

I have a lot of worms in my garden so I save and grind my eggshells for them. They have gizzards, just like chickens, and need something gritty to make up for not having any teeth.

Linda

I was going to mention that. Each year I also have a small corner in one of my planting beds where I leave a pile of chopped eggshells. The birds need extra calcium during egg-laying season and also for digestion. They have become accustomed to going to this spot and I see them picking up eggshells all summer long. Same with earthworms. Only problem is that, because I'm organic, the moles have discovered these tasty treats and are tunneling through my whole yard.
Just a slight disagreement, however. My research indicated that calcium deficiency is responsible for blossom end rot. I'll check further on this but have never had a problem with it.
The main thing is we are taking a natural substance and adding it to our soil for overall improvement.
I started out years ago with a backyard that was literally beach sand and it has taken years to build it up so any addition of a compostable material has given me the topsoil I need to have a decent garden.

I save cooked egg shells in a jar and put them in my compost bin.

Keep in mind that limestone is available for about $.10 per pound, cheaper in larger bulk quantities. So using blender, stove, mole bait not to mention time wasted and the cleanup will ultimately be more costly than just buying limestone. Nothing wrong with composting eggshells along with other organic materials.

I wont get into the BER debate. It has already been beat to death over the years on this site.

Not following you. Fairly new to this forum. What's BER? And the limestone? Can you give me a hint at to what you mean by this? I just use lime to sweeten the soil where I have lots of moss growing. And the stove? Sure would be interested in getting rid of moles but I presume that's on another forum. Thanks!

Blossom End Rot which is caused by inconsistent watering which causes difficulty in absorbing calcium. People erroneously think that calcium amendments are the answer, but not much can be done at the time the problem hits - plants usually grow out of it as the season progresses and they think that their calcium spray or Tums or whatever has worked.

I don't know nuffin 'bout moles, but my dog thinks they are very exciting critters to stalk and dig!

Linda

There are probably hundreds of opinions on this, but one source claimed the calcium temporarily depleted nitrogen, so I add a bit of blood meal or just water with a diluted emulsion. I did notice, however, if I didn't do this the plants appeared a little peaked.
However, whatever works is fine with me.

With regard to moles, I'm heading to the mole forum, for my dogs would probably let them in the door.

they are better served in the compost pile.. no need to heat them, grind them, etc.. simply rinse off any egg white left in the shell and let air dry for a few days then toss in a food bag. after the bag is full just crush them while they're inside the bag with your hands or step on them.. then spread in compost pile.

i have some great compost from last year that is ready for use this year.. food scraps makes the best compost because end the result is highly nutrient rich hummus. it is worth so much because almost all compost sold these days aren't made primarily of food scraps, but rather what they call "mushroom compost" (mostly things like hay, wood chips. peat moss, etc..) things i would consider worthless for good compost.

there is nothing more rewarding than putting back into the earth what originally came out of it and repeating the cycle.. i have a difficult time deciding what is better.. what i took, or what i put back ;)

Ca in eggshell is Calcium Carbonate and it is not readily available for plants to use it. It will take years to be broken down in soil to usable form. .

But there is a simple quick way to do the trick :

-- Wash, dry , grind your eggshells.'

-- Add vinegar (acetic Acid ) to it.

You will see the chemical action in front of your eyes. What you will get is "CALCIUM ACETATE" which is in ionic state (Ca++). You can do this with Fast acting lime (Dolomitic Lime) too.

Calcium has to be in ionic form ( Ca++) to be available for plants. Plants cannot uptake pure elements out of the periodic table or in solid composition that is not water soluble.

4thumbs: My research indicated that calcium deficiency is responsible for blossom end rot. I'll check further on this but have never had a problem with it.

It's a calcium deficiency in the developing fruit during a crucial stage. But it usually has nothing to do with calcium deficiency in the soil, just in the plant's ability to transport calcium to the needed areas, which is in turn linked to various stresses, most commonly water but other things like nutrient imbalances, temperature, soil pH, etc. can also produce BER. Certain tomato varieties are much more susceptible to it as well.

This thread may help.

That makes sense. But I would assume that having this element in the soil would allow the plant to utilize it at some point. Anyway, I think we've beaten this one to death. The main thing is that it's heartening to know that so many gardeners seem to be adopting organic methods of gardening and are composting a variety of natural resources rather than sending them down the garbage disposal where they serve no purpose.

"The main thing is that it's heartening to know that so many gardeners seem to be adopting organic methods of gardening and are composting a variety of natural resources rather than sending them down the garbage disposal where they serve no purpose."

Amen to that! ;-)

Dave

**Egg shells and tomatoes**

Buy 1 dozen eggs

Break them putting the eggs in a bowl and put the eggshells aside.

Use the eggs to make several times the usual recipe of warm, buttery chocolate chip Tollhouse cookies.

Sit in the garden area and have a freshly brewed cup of coffee and a few warm cookies. Work on the tomato plants for a while. Have more cookies.

Invite the neighbor over and work with the tomatoes some more. Have more cookies. Neighbor asks for eggshells for her tomatoes for BER. While you are in the house putting the shells in a Kroger bag, she gets started helping you mulch the tomato plants. You join her and the two of you mulch for a while.

An hour later, she has to go home, the tomatoes are all mulched. You send her home with another 6 big cookies on a plate and the eggshells in a bag.

A couple months later, you have an amazing bumper crop of tomatoes.

Hah!! I want to garden with YOU Lucille! LOL.

That's the way to garden Lucille ! :-) After she goes home some go back out to the garden area to sit and admire all with a beer in hand. In my case the grandkids get home from school and we go to the garden for a bad bug hunt and to say thanks to all the good guys..

Dave

Oh, I get it now. Cookie crumbs increase tomato productivity. Heheh

I've read that after ph of 6.8 egg shells stop breaking down. They readily break down in a more acidic soil condition. Not a good source of calcium.

> Not a good source of calcium.

come again?

90%+ of an egg shell is calcium. the remaining is other trace elements such as magnesium and potassium.
there are studies that show that eating eggs shells is more effective than even purified food grade calcium carbonate (ie vitamins people buy).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15018022
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11281164

these studies are a bit surprising.. if the egg shells have a positive effect on humans and rats, surely plants too, since all life on earth is made up of the same elements..

egg shells will break down regardless of soil PH...it's the microorganisms in the soil that break things down, even rock hard BONE will break down.. but again, the more organisms (found in most healthy soils) the faster they break down. if you just throw them whole, then my guess is it will take a few years, but eventually time will decay just about everything.

in my compost bin after a year i do not see any thing that resembles egg shells and i throw about 2 dozen eggs per week in the bin. the shells are typically about 1/4 inch in size or less. grounding them up would definitely help, but a bit over board for me.. perhaps if i was orally consuming them i surely would.

Ok I will come again. So what I meant was it's not a good source of calcium for plants. There are better sources. Not that an egg is not calcium in itself.

Also like I stated it's from what I read. Here is one of the places that I read from. To include the ph.

http://www.gardenmyths.com/eggshells-do-they-decompose-in-the-garden/

in the link it say:

"The testing found that hand crushed eggshells did NOT change the soil
pH, and they did NOT increase the level of calcium in the soil. This is
after being in the soil for three weeks."

3 weeks...
to me it sounds like they just scattered some eggs over the surface and just expected them to disappear in a couple weeks.

What I read

under the title

Eggshells - What happens in soil?

near the end

"They stop changing the pH because they stop breaking down at a pH of 6.8."

so I guess that would depend on the ph of a compost pile if the egg shells would eventually break down efficiently or not. Maybe I need to reasearch more about that.

stevie: there are studies that show that eating eggs shells is more effective than even purified food grade calcium carbonate (ie vitamins people buy).

Soil is not a mammalian digestive tract. Plants are not animals.

stevie: in my compost bin after a year i do not see any thing that resembles egg shells

Soil is also not the same as compost.

I grind my eggshells in a coffee grinder before putting them in the garden or worm bin. Some of it becomes extremely fine powder, while some of it is more like coarser granules. In my worm compost, I can still see telltale white grains of the granules even after six months.

I think the Garden Myths article is a little too sweeping. But I also think that eggshells are not a good source of corrective calcium if there is a problem with calcium in the soil, and it needs to be seen as an amendment that works on very long timelines only.

> Soil is not a mammalian digestive tract. Plants are not animals.

i was not suggesting that plants digest the way humans and animals do, but rather all life use the same elements.. iron, copper, magnesium, zinc, etc.. the same calcium that people need is no different than the calcium plant need - a point i was making in response to habjolokia who said that egg calcium is not the correct calcium.

> Soil is also not the same as compost.

i was referring micro organisms which break down matter, both of which are found in compost and in the ground. this is why many people add healthy SOIL to the compost pile to start the compost/decaying process.

https://www.spectrumanalytic.com/support/library/ff/Ca_Basics.htm

i think people should read that and hopefully put this to rest ;)
just because there is calcium in existing soil does not mean it's available to plants.. most of it is insoluble and while most soil have calcium already, it is deep down in the layers and not on the surface where plants need it. further down it also explains what plants benefit from adding additional calcium to the soil.. whether you choose to use eggs shells or buy something already in a can.. your call.

stevie: i was not suggesting that plants digest the way humans and animals do, but rather all life use the same elements.. iron, copper, magnesium, etc.. the same calcium that people need is no different than the calcium plant need - a point i was making a point on in response to habjolokia who said that egg calcium is not the proper calcium.

We're all talking about 1) calcium in soil for plants and 2) addressing deficiency in plants. In which case, it's accurate to say that the form of calcium in eggshells is not the right kind, i.e., it's a bad choice for addressing deficiency problems in plants because it is not readily available to plants in the correct time frames. This is why your comments about animals eating eggshell seemed beside the point to me.

stevie: i was referring micro organisms which break down matter, both of which are found in compost and in the ground. this is why many people add SOIL to the compost pile to start the compost/decaying process.

Regardless, compost is not the same environment as soil. Concentrations of microorganisms, various pH levels during the composting process, temperature, moisture, micro- and macrobiota... all of these conditions differ in compost vs. soil

stevie: i think people should read that and hopefully put this to rest. just because there is calcium in existing soil does not mean it's available to plants.. most of it is insoluble.

I think you are mischaracterizing other people's arguments. Nobody is saying that all calcium in soil is available to plants or that true available calcium (Ca2+) deficiency can never happen. But it's been well established that it is, indeed, rare for soluble calcium to be deficient in soils. This is in contrast to a lot of Internet advice which makes it seem like calcium deficiency is rampant and common and the first thing to address when it comes to something like BER.

Also, nobody is making the case that adding soluble forms of calcium is never necessary. But it's very unlikely to be because of lack of soluble calcium in soil but rather because of an excess of one or more nutrients that interfere/compete with calcium. A soil test and diagnosis of the issue is the best approach to figuring out if this is the case and addressing it, not throwing calcium, especially in insoluble forms, at any problem that arises.

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When Ca2+ is deficient in the media/soil, there will be problems with cell wall stability (see above; Marschner, 1995). Ca2+ in the xylem sap is translocated upward in the transpiration system, but once deposited, it is almost immobile. As a result of this immobility, deficiency symptoms are most pronounced in young tissues—where cell division is occurring. However, true Ca2+ deficiencies in soils are rather rare, and problems associated with low soil Ca2+ may be attributed to soil problems rather than a true Ca2+ deficiency. For example, Ca2+ deficiencies are favored by very low soil pH and on soils high in magnesium and potassium. Probably the most recognizable Ca2+ deficiency, especially to the weekend gardener, is blossom-end rot of tomato fruits, which is induced by water stress (Bennett, 1993). At the time of fruit set, cells at the blossom end of fruits are injured when insufficient Ca2+ translocation to the flower results in a dry-rot area on the expanding fruit (Fig. 1).

http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/136/1/2438.short

--------------------

But the original point is that BER is most frequently a problem of transport of calcium within the plant due to certain stressful conditions, since calcium is not very mobile in the plant itself, so anything that interferes with transport is going to have a disproportionate effect. Because of this, no matter how much calcium you put into the soil and no matter how bioavailable it is, it still is unlikely to solve most cases of BER because it won't address the issue of what's going on in the plant.