[kev]

Has anyone here ever used eggs for fertilizer? I was making some homemade potting soil for my peppers and tomatoes, when I thought about putting an egg under the plant.

I vaguely remember reading about this years ago. Or maybe it was a meme floating around facebook? Anyway, I got some eggs from the chicken house, poked a hole in the top with a screw, the buried the egg under the plant.

Not sure how well this is going to work, but I thought it would be worth a try.

 

[timesarechanging]

I usually just smash them up with a rock/shovel, etc, then mix them in the soil. I have had great tomatoes where I have done it. Not sure if correlation=causation, but I like to think it made a difference. Btw, I only used the shell, not the whole egg insides.

It is my understanding that peppers and tomatoes need more calcium.

 

[Hyperglo]

My egg shells always end up in the garden, compost and potted plants. I don't see why using the whole egg would be a bad idea, expect maybe smell and even that would be temporary. What made you poke a hole and leave the yoke still in it? I'm just curious, I have never heard of anyone doing that. Give us an update as it goes. I'm interested in how it goes.

 

[rwtrapper]

Maters love protein/iron. I put some dead animal/fish an eggs below the root when I plant. That way the roots go get what they want. This is also where your lime an epson salt should be. Again the roots go get what they want. When doing this pull the plant up at the time of frost an look at the root development. The root is quite larger than any plants not done this way. I grow two plants every year in the same spot my grandmother did for 40 plus years. Just my way hope it works for you.

 

[LC '92]

I put some fish pieces under some tomatoes I planted one year. That night the '***** dug up everyone of them! They might do the same with eggs.

Good luck.

 

[RAEIndustries]

Eggshells are great to refeed back to the chickens to keep their shells strong, and small fish bones guts blood etc is great to put in with seeds for larger plants

 

[rwtrapper]

All the stuff I mentioned needs to be at least 14 inches or so deep. The end of the root on top of a covering layer of soil. Done this way I have never had one dug up by critters.

 

[Cowboypapa]

I toss all my cracked eggs in the garden on the way back from the chikin house all winter long. I the spring everything else gets tilled in too.

 

[thyme2bprepped]

I toss all my cracked eggs in the garden on the way back from the chikin house all winter long. I the spring everything else gets tilled in too.

Never thought of using them for fertilizer, but there's a flower bed that's convenient for disposing of cracked eggs. They get turned in as we go.

 

[bunkerbuster]

LOL.....At our BOL, when some of our excess eggs get near the end of their storage life, we skillet scramble them along with some fine calcium carbonate added & feed then back to the chickens. Which LOVE them.

The shells get ground in a blender with water & get poured on our compost piles.

 

[RyanT]

Eggs are food--eat em! Or feed em to your animals.

Then use the waste as fertilizer!

 

[country_boy]

You can feed the egg shells to the chickens- just bake them quick enough to cook any proteins- to avoid raising cannibalistic chickens.

 

[barnetmill]

I have tried the fish base fertilizers and critters started digging into the soil. My concern with the egg would be my dogs digging into the soil. Other than that I thinks eggs would make a good fertilizer.

 

[Elvin Moseid]

No, but I have used fish many times..
A couple of small fish in the bottom of a raised bed gives very good results. I learned it from a Sami guy. They have used trout, salmon and other fish as fertilizer in their kitchen gardens for centuries..

 

[Freebirde]

I like to use crushed eggshells as a top dressing that gets turned under at the end of the season. The shells deter snails and slugs along with the calcium leaching into the soil. Locally, the main cause of blossom end rot in tomatoes is low calcium in the soil.

In my parents garden we always buried the leftovers from cleaning fish a foot + deep between rows.

 

[IceFire]

While I don't use the edible part of the egg, I DO save my egg SHELLS, crush them up, and add them to my garden beds. Tomatoes and peppers DO benefit from the added calcium...it helps to prevent blossom end rot. I also add a bit of Epsom salts (magnesium) as well

 

[Aerindel]

I wonder if you would be better off cutting out the middle man and just using chicken feed for fertilizer.

 

[IceFire]

I wonder if you would be better off cutting out the middle man and just using chicken feed for fertilizer.

Umm....no. However, not only can you use the eggshells, but for those who have chickens (not just the shells from the eggs they bought), you can ALSO use the chicken manure for fertilizer. It's excellent fertilizer, you just have to be sure to compost it thoroughly first before using it, though, because that stuff is HOT! (Hot enough to burn your plants up.) It will definitely heat up a compost pile and get it "cooking", though.