Speaker 1: Welcome to the Simple garden Life Podcast, a program dedicated
to keeping the yard of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding.
Now Here are your hosts, Jim and Mary Competti.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome everybody to the Simple garden Life Podcast.
I am your co host Jim Competti.
Speaker 3: And I'm Mary Competti, and.
Speaker 2: Together we are the dynamic duo today talking about the
biggest mistake gardeners make with eggshells and more importantly, how
to use eggshells correctly to power your garden and flower beds.
And you know, we talk about eggshell's NonStop on the website.
We've done a podcast on eggshells and coffee grounds Mary,
but today we get so many emails about it. We
really wanted to cover the subject of how to really
use eggshells the right way.
Speaker 3: Right with garden season coming up, it's the perfect time
to talk about this topic.
Speaker 2: It is so remind everybody that this is the Simple
garden Life website. You can follow our podcast on simplegardenlife
dot com. Just hit the podcast tab up there at
the top and you can see all of our years
of podcasts. This is our second episode of the twenty
sixth season, and we've got a full slate this year
and really really excited. And today's subject is one of
the ones that a lot of vegetable gardeners and flower
gardeners should also be really aware of before we get
into how to use them, Right, Mary, I think we
have to talk about you know, why eggshells are so
incredible there are.
Speaker 3: They're one of the most commonly recommended organic ingredients for
powering both your garden soil and your plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for good reason. I mean they're rich in calcium,
which happens to be, you know, a big time nutrient
for strong plant cell walls, but it's also vital for
the overall plant health. We've talked about this before. Most importantly,
people associate lack of calcium with blossom.
Speaker 3: Rot right, and blossom and broad For those that don't know,
is that annoying little thing that comes up throughout the
garden season when you think you have the perfect tomato
or pepper growing on your plant and you go to
pick it, or you go to check it and you
touch it and finger goes right through the bottom of
the tomato or pepper.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just exactly what it sounds like, the end
of the tomato or a pepper where the blossom was
attached will start to rot away and it really ruins
the entire fruit. Now, just to let people know, blossom
in rot, don't confuse that with the first few tomatoes
of the season or the peppers of the season. Your
plants are young, they're very immature. We always get a
ton of emails and messages about, oh my gosh, my
tomato plants just produce their first tomato and they've got
blossom in rot. Remember that when they're young and immature,
those first few tomatoes are probably likely going to have that.
That's why we always tell people pick those first few
fruits off of your tomatoes or even your pepper plants
and allow them to grow. But real blossom in rot
is when that problem continues on through the spring and.
Speaker 3: Summer, right And when you have those tomatoes and pepper
plants that are doing that in the early season, it's
most likely, dude, that we're overfertilizing in the stores, or
that they're just young and immature and they haven't had
it ability to absorb calcium correctly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they really are. So let's talk about really what
eggshells do in the long term for your soil and
that calcium. So why are eggshells so important for this Well,
for starters, eggshells are ninety percent calcium carbonate. I mean
that you're talking nine tenths of an eggshell is pure calcium.
I mean that is what can provide that to your
plants and the soil they grow in. But here's the issue.
Most gardeners don't use them in the way that maximize
those benefits for the crops this year.
Speaker 3: Right, And we've learned over the years as well. We
used to use eggshells in every planting hole and we
would just crush them up with our hands and throw
them in the planning hole, which does provide some benefits
for the tomatoes and plants in the years to come,
but not for this year's plants.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and why is that. Well, let's just go back
to the famous compost pile. Have you ever thrown eggshells
into your compost pile, or for a better part, thrown
them into your soil. You go out one month, two months,
three months later, and there's still bits and pieces of
those eggshells. Why is that? Because they take a very
long time to break down. And when they take a
long time to break down. What's that mean for your plants?
Means they're not going to get those nutrients because they
haven't broken down in the soil where they can absorb
the calcium from the eggshells to really help them.
Speaker 3: So the real secret is to making most out of
your eggshells in your garden is how you prepare them.
Speaker 2: It really is. I mean, they can correct calcium deficiencies,
and they can help plants not have weak stems and
curled leaves and poor fruiting. I mean it's not even
just for tomatoes and peppers, it is for flowers. Calcium
is such an important part of the overall makeup of
what the soil needs to be healthy and what plants
need to be able to absorb. You know, overly wet soil,
overly dry so calcium has a hard time sofium with
the plants. But there's a lot of times that there's
just not the calcium in the soil that plants like tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, flowers,
big time annuals, like dreams, all of those that they
just can't absorb it. And when they can't, then all
the problems occur.
Speaker 3: However, when properly use eggshells can provide a wonderful, slow
release source of calcium throughout the growing season.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, it's one of the best. That's why
we always talk about them. So what is this big
mistake that we talk about. Well, we've already kind of
hit on it a little bit. You know, many gardeners
assume that tossing large chunks, even semi crushed egg pieces.
I even saw last week and you know, if it's
on the internet, it's a tree right now. Yeah, right,
But I saw last week where you should just plant
two whole eggs with every tomato plant, and I started
thinking it through it I'm like, Okay, you know, the
yolk and things like that are going to have some benefits,
but you're not getting the calcium benefit from a whole
egg put in a hole, because again, that crush shell
is not going to break down. Egg Shells take a
long time to break down in the soil. I mean,
especially when they're left in pieces. It can take months
even years for that calcium to become available to the plants.
So that means that simply placing an eggshell in the
planting hole it's not going to provide any immediate benefits
to the plant. To that spot during the current season.
Speaker 3: So the question is what makes eggshells beneficial for this
year's garden.
Speaker 2: Well, there's a really simple thing. That delay that they
have when they're breaking down is what causes it. So
you have to help break those egg shells down a
whole lot more to really help them absorb quickly into
the soil and become a part of it. So let's
take a break, and when we come back, we'll get
to the way we handle our egg shells and how
we plant them and how much we use, and then
more importantly, how we start to store them all the
time year round to really have eggshells on hand at
any moment. We'll be right back after these messages, and
we are back for the best way to use eggshells
in the garden. And Mary, I guess, I mean, what
is the secret?
Speaker 3: Well to ensure your curtain garden always gets the full
benefit of eggshells. It's actually best to grind them into
a fine powder before adding them to the soil. But
a lot of people say, Okay, what does that mean
or how do you do it? So you know, it's
actually very easy to do.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know, Look, you can go the hard route,
you can get the what's it called a mortal and pest.
I always thank you. I'm not the chef of the
of the two of us, but here's here's the really
easy way get yourself an inexpensive coffee grinder. I mean
you can get them now for eighteen nineteen dollars, just
the small, small hand ones and keep it around to
pulverize egg shells. We use ours. You can put we
crush them by hand. You can probably put I'm going
to say, what six to eight egg shells marion and
a little one, just like you're making coffee grounds. Right.
Speaker 3: But the important key here is, yes, we're recommending using
a coffee grinder or some grinder, but it really needs
to be dedicated use to the eggshells.
Speaker 2: Yeah, unless you're going to clean that thing out every
single time, and you can. You can wash out and
clean it. But we just like to go to that
inexpensive route and say, okay, this is our grinder for
all the things we're going to use. But you can
grind that down not into small egg shell pieces, but
into a very fine powder and I'm talking talcum like powder.
That's what we do. We just grind it down over
and over. It doesn't take long, and that actually has
a lot of benefits for the plants. But before we
do that, let's talk about storing them. It has a
lot of benefits for us because let's talk about the
years past when we would collect these eggs shells and
we'd crush them by hand, put them in freezer bags,
and we would just fill our freezer over the winter
trying to save and have all this all these egg shells.
Speaker 3: Right, So there's a better way to actually store your
eggshells throughout the winter and getting ready for garden season. Yeah,
we're not quite ready to plant yet, No, we're not.
Speaker 2: We're still saving all of our eggs shells and for that.
So what we do is, you know, we'll save so
many A lot of people like to put their egg shells.
We get all these questions, so I'm just going to
cover them right now because I think it's important to
talk about it. Do you have to dry them? Well, yeah,
they're going to grind a whole lot better. We usually
we get a grinding process. What every three or four weeks,
we'll save our eggshells, will crush them by hand, put
them in a freezer, luck bag, throw them in the
freezer and when we get enough, we'll take them out
and we'll freeze them or excuse me, not freezom we'll
grind them up into that powder. You can, and a
lot of people love doing this. Put them on a
cookie sheet, put them in your oven, I think one
p fifty and dry them out. We've never really done that.
It's not necessary. People say, well, can you get this? No,
they're eggshells. They're not going to carry all the other
things we talk about, but a lot of people like
to heat them up to dry them, and you certainly can.
Speaker 3: Right The big concern is salvonilla, and you know you
definitely we get the questions should you rinch your eggshells
before you store them or crush them? Sure, printing is
not going to hurt them. Putting them into a powder
or grinding them into a powder is going to help
get rid of at of that access to salvanilla. But again,
you can rinse them and then dry them and freeze them,
or you can put them in your oven. Most ovens
are about one eighty to two hundred degrees and you
can dry them out before you grind them. But you know,
it's just an important thing. Is that we want them
to to powder before they go into your planting holes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you freeze that and there's really little
worry of anything. So once you get that powder and
we save it up a lot, So now it really
comes down to how are you going to use these
to really benefit your plants. So you know, think before
when you would crush those eggshells up and you might
put an eggshell or two, and again we talked to it,
it's not going to get to those plants this year.
That's really not going to help the soil. But when
you're taking a tea spoon or two of eggshell powder
and you're putting it in that planting hole of a
tomato or a marigold or a pepper plant, days are
all going to almost within you know, days, absorb into
that soil, the watering comes in, it starts to leach
those nutrients right into your plants and really provides them
of the calcium boost they need. Right.
Speaker 3: That calcium is going to last pretty much all growing
season once you put it into the planting hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And so how much should you use?
I mean, this is the great question. So here's here's
our roll of thumb and what We've been doing this
for a while now with a lot of success. And
so what's the old saying, When something works, you know,
don't break it.
Speaker 3: Right, right exactly?
Speaker 2: So for eggshell powder, for our vegetable plants, tomatoes and peppers, cucumbers, zucchini,
you name it, we put i'd say two to three
tablespoons in every planting hole.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think for the larger vegetable plants or the
larger flowers, I think, you know, two to three tablespoons
is more than plenty smaller plants, pansies you know you
can put Oh yeah, you can put a.
Speaker 2: Little bit in. You're absolutely right. And again we talk
about this. Why is this called the simple garden life?
Because sometimes people make gardenings so difficult and so frustrating
for themselves that it's not fun. And you have to
make it fun. So for us, when we say two
to three, we really mean that. It's not like if
you put three tablespoons, your tomato plants are going to
produce six point eight pounds of tomatoes and two tablespoons
are going to have some blossom rot. It's not the
way it works. This helps your soil over time, but
grind him. It helps your soil much more immediately in
the same growing season and can help your plants just
develop far better with far less health issues. And again
it's not just beyond the blossom. Calcium also plays a huge,
huge role in that initial plant health for all of
those annual plants we're talking.
Speaker 3: About, right, And it also helps with soil to absorb
when your plants are having difficulty absorbing calcium because they
are too wet, Giving that calcium boost helps your plants tremendously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we talk about planting holes. That's where people
really need to concentrate their efforts. So many people get
composts and worm castings and all the great things that
you really do need, and they spread them all over
their garden and tilimin or they think that's going all over.
Concentrate those things, just like this ey powder, right in
your planting holes, because that's where the roots of your
plants are going to grow and they're going to take
them that season. So when you know in our planting
holes we put composts, we put coffee grounds, we put eggshells,
we put worm castings, those are all in the planting
hole because they're helping that plant that year right where
it needs it the most.
Speaker 3: Right at the roots. But also use the eggshell powder
on top of our soil after we plant.
Speaker 2: And why is that? It's a It's a great cause
because what happens when it rains.
Speaker 3: Right, it's a slow release calcium boost to your plants.
Speaker 2: Yes, every time it rains or you water, that calcium
is leaching down into that soil and helping out. And
again we might put a tea spoon around the top
of each plant. And if we have enough, we sometimes
you know, it depends how many eggs I've had.
Speaker 3: That you eat a lot of eggs, we're good.
Speaker 2: So again, just take it like that. It just realized
that when you use the powder versus bits and pieces,
you're going to get a lot more. Now, I want
to say something before we go. There still is a
use for the bits and pieces. And this is what
we have talked about. We're like, wait a minute, wait
a minute. You're said, grind, grind, grind. But if you
have a lot of problems with slugs broken eggshells around
the rims of your plants. When I say the rims,
you plant on your top and you circle a little
maybe three inches out and you crush up some eggshells
around there. That can actually help prevent slug damage because
with the slugs cannot crawl across that without getting cut,
which drives their skin out and they can't make it
to your plant. So there still was a use for
some crushed eggshells. And yes they'll break down eventually and
help put some soil in there as well, but for
the majority of the use of it, you want to
use that ground.
Speaker 3: Powder, right And for those that don't eat eggs, there's
some people that candied eggs, like me because I have
an egg allergy, or people that just don't choose eat eggs,
you can still utilize eggs in your eggshells in your garden.
For many years, we would go to our local diner,
breakfast diner and ask them to save their eggshells for us.
And we would go there every Saturday with our five
gallon bucket and switch it out and they would give
us their eggs shells from their breakfast and we would
just replace them with a clean bucket.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure they gave us their egg shells, their potato, peelium.
Speaker 3: And coffee gross.
Speaker 2: All their coffee we did, and all we had to
do was take them a five gallon bucket every Saturday
and we would go in for breakfast and they would
hand us a full one. We would like we, you know,
had won the lottery. Taking it home. We got a
lot of strange looks though, yeah we did, but you
know what it was. It was great because you were
saving that from going to a landfill and it was
really helping. That was until we got our own chickens
and could start doing our own things. But Mary's right,
there's always a way to find these these soil amendments
that that don't have to be so costly. You know,
you can make your own compost, you can go out
and find coffee grounds, you can go out and find
eggshells even if you don't have them. But the important
thing is, and what we hope you take home today
as we wrap this up, is that egg shells can
be so beneficial to helping your soil and helping your plants,
but it's best to always grind them down as much
as possible and leave you with this this last thing. Yes,
if you're asking and you're thinking, well, wait a minute,
I put eggshells in my compost, ben, Yeah, if you
if you grind them up, they're going to break down
that much faster, and that calcium is going to.
Speaker 3: Leach into there as well one percent, and they're beneficial
in all areas of gardening.
Speaker 2: All right, so I think we've wrapped up our second
podcast of the season. We're really enjoying getting back into
this and we hope you are too. Again. You can
always email us at the farm at owgarden dot com
with your questions. We're always happy to answer. We try
to get back with everybody within at least a day
or two. We enjoy it and we get a lot
of emails from it, and you can follow us at
simplegardenlife dot com. I'm Jim Competti for Marycompetti and Mary.
What do we always say at the end?
Speaker 3: Happy gardening? Everyone?
Speaker 2: That's right, Happy gardening. We'll see you next time. We
hope you've enjoyed this episode. Subscribe to the Simple Garden
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the show notes to every episode and.
Speaker 3: If you have any questions, any ideas for show topics,
or if you want to share your favorite garden tip,
email us at the Farm at owgarden dot com.
Speaker 2: Until next time, Thanks everyone,