Kitchen Garden Forum

Along with my winter caulies, the other highlight to my season start was my compost! For the first time it looked like the books describe it should, dark, moist, crumbling and without smell. There were a few twigs from the base but nothing could stop my unalloyed joy - what a sad man I am.

Anyway, I haven't been adding egg shells as I am unsure of their worth. My very first compost (almost the opposite to this years batch), ages ago, had the shells coming out as they went in. But my main concern is this - do they attract vermin?

I have mole runs under the wire base to my heap but so far no rats. Would egg shells change this if I used uncooked egg shells?

Any experience out there?

Interesting - I've been putting 'uncooked' egg shells and tea bags in my heap but it's v new so I'd appreciate an experts opinion as well.

Not "an expert's opinion", just my experience:

I have always put eggshells in my compost and they have never attracted vermin - after all, they're not especially tasty. The only problem is that they decompose very slowly. This doesn't worry me; I just smash them up when using the compost. Of course, you could crush them before adding them to the compost.

I used to put uncooked crushed up egg shells to my compost for years without noticing that they particularly attracted vermin but these days they're crushed up and sprinkled round the base of my hostas, along with coffee grounds, to try and keep the slugs away. Either way, they eventually distintegrate and disappear into the soil, albeit very slowly.

I don't think egg shells will attract rats if they are empty, rats usually like things that smell nice, we have abit of a rat problem but I've never noticed them bothering with shells, i think it makes the compost nice and gritty. I know that rats love peanut butter!! we always get them in the trap with a dollop of that!!
Gracie.

I always understood that even empty egg shells attracted rats so I never put them in the compost when we had an open bin but now, with three large closed bins, I break them up in my hand and mix them into the compost and by the time I use it on the land, they seem to have disappeared.

Egg shells and teabags are good for compost heaps because the worms will love them. They need grit to help their digestive processes, so the eggshells provide this. Moreover, they will add calcium to the heap, which is alkaline, which will therefore compensate for the primarily acidic material which will normally go in.

I can't quote the websites off-hand, but a look at any site to do with worm composting will give you more info.

mike