Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi All

I have managed to secure an arrangement with the works restaurant to take all of their egg shells for allotment use. Question is - do I have to wash and sterilise these before crushing to a powder before I use them as a calcium supplement for plants or can i simply dry them and crush them ready for use? I would be looking to store these over a number of months. I am looking at approx 150 eggs per day.

Thanks in advance

I keep mine separate from anything else in old carrier bags until they have dried, then I crush them down in the bags so that they become a size suitable to be used as a deterrent for slugs & snails to travel over when spread on the ground.
Any calcium added into the soil is a side benefit.

As we don't get enough eggshells in this house I simply rinse them, crush and put into my compost crock & these to the heap unless it's hosta growing time, in which case I simply crumple them up into the earth. 150 eggs per days is quite a lot to wash and sterilise so you may need several buckets/bowls for drying them out thoroughly after washing before crushing. I would have thought that sturdy refuse container bags would be the best containers for storing them in. Pity you can't get the canteen to wash and dry them, and then maybe use their heavy duty food processor for grinding them up to a powder for you!

With that quantity of eggs on a daily basis I wonder if there's a danger that over time you could risk adding too much calcium to your soil,although i'm sure other allotment holders would be happy to relieve you of any surplus product.

The best way to dry eggshells is in a tray at the bottom of your oven and when heated and allowed to cool they are easier to crush. You can go the whole hog and put the crushed particles through a blender and this gives a coarse kind of flour and this is best added in small quantities to each layer of your compost bin. I feel that this way it may more safely added to your soil.