Poking cocktail sticks through avocado stones and suspend them in water. Uh no, just plock on soil as nature intended. Rooting pineapple tops in water. 😔 nawww 😑.
Urine in the garden? Myth? Growing up my mom had huge hydrangeas and every so often she'd throw urine in the soil. (She watched kids and was always potty training one or two)
it's weird to me has a fish tank keeper that people think egg shells will deter snails.cause I feed egg shells to my snails to give them calcium to help maintain their shells.
@@sarahrogers7883 there's no biological difference between snails and slugs that would be relevant to egg shells in their path. The main difference in the two is habitat, and that's mainly because a gastropod with no shell can squeeze into environments that one with a shell could not.
Misnomers or myths about gardening 1) Use or misuse of eggshells (they do not deter slugs or snails). 2) Don't use pointy things (such as one-use plastic forks) to deter cats or pests, it doesn't work. 3) Blossom end rot: it is a plant condition. To avoid: consistent watering, take care of the plant 4) Pine needles acidify the soil but only minimally. Fresh pine needles are slightly acidic and old needles are barely acidic at all. You can even add pin needles to compost Side note: Awesome looking garden!!!
Another one is black walnut. A lot of people think black walnut will kill everything and leave a wasteland under it's canopy with how it "kills" plants. A guy with a sawmill actually pointed out how wrong this is by pointing out how grass still grows under most of them as well as other weed plants. The most effective way of killing off competing plants amongst trees is to simply shade them out
I come from a Mexican family, and one misconception that I always heard as a kid was that praying mantis were so poisonous/venemous that they could kill a whole cow. I grew terrified of them until I had my Garden and read more about them. Now, I find them pretty and interesting.
Also, as someone who keeps snails as pets, they like eggshells. They scrape things for calcium to grow their shells and eggshells are actually really good for them.
FYI for those of you that want to use egg shells in your compost. I bought a very cheep coffee/spice grinder at walmart toss dried out egg shells in in and it turns the shells to powder.
I just grab them from a restaurant and tossing them in the compost pile. 10 yards. Of compost gets about 60 quarts of busted up eggs. Cannabis grew 10ft tall and got about 1# of dry buds from that compost pile.
Gardening was my home therapy during a depression and after that I kept is a hobby. I have apple-bananas, plantains, pineapple, avocado and caribbean cherries.
I've been baking eggshells and grinding them into a fine powder to supplement calcium for my pets and myself. Even using it as a supplement for 2 cats, a bearded dragon, and myself I still end up with a whole lot of it. I've been dumping some in my compost bin as well as just a few tablespoons every 3 months in my tomato garden down what I call the root chute - PVC pipe I've embedded 1.5-2 feet in the ground with holes around the outside for weekly deep root watering, aeration, and fertilization. Still have a jar and a half of the powder on hand at any given time, lol. I think it's helping the tomatoes with "end rot" because after I started adding the powder I didn't have any more "end rot" without changing watering practice or changing season - started mid-summer. I have an automatic irrigation system (soaker hose under a layer of mulch) to water my garden every morning. I keep my cats out of my garden with snow barrier netting over a PVC pipe frame, also makes a good trellis for tomatoes as well. Only problem is it degrades after a year or two. I should probably just upgrade to chicken wire.
Rhoda Watkins I currently use mortar and pestle, if you want a finer grind... coffee or spice grinder may be what you’re looking for. I’m gonna switch over personally.
I clean my shells right out. Like I peel off every bit of membrane. Should I even bother doing that. I only started because it keeps them from getting smelly.
In Australia we use egg shells (broken up, not crushed) to keep white moths away from plants - the moths presumably see the white and assume there are already other moths there. Source: I had a whole crop of zucchini plants leaves stripped by white moths one year and egg shells saved the next crop.
Add a piece of iron to soil nearby tree. A friend has a old boat iron anchor that was left partially buried by tree. They get so many large yummy avocados 🥑 they have to bring some to share with friends like me. I don’t know if that old iron anchor does this or not? But they are the best buttery Avocados 🥑 I’ve Ever, Ever had in my life.
@@DnolB65 That would be my idea of heaven, having an avocado tree full of buttery avocados. But such a tree is prob not poss in the UK🇬🇧 with our damp, rainy m, chilly climate.🙁
I have used pulverized egg shells for years. They are wonderful for rose bushes. Pulverized egg shels go into my worm food, composts and directly into gardens.
Fish fertilizer and epsom salt does wonders for rose bushes shit it does wonders for everything I wish you could see my yard I wish you could see my lawn man Lush and green
I use pulverized egg shells and banana peels cut into strips to give rose bushes a little boost ahead of time. Occasionally also fish fertilizer; I use the bananas, weighted down with a teaspoon, to feed the fish
Your videos are informative and helpful especially if you’re a beginner . I like the way you get straight to the point without rambling and wasting time on the intro. You’re plant care tips are easy to follow and they work!
I adore your channel! I am a traditional farm wife having been raised on the farm, gardening, preserving, hunting, butchering is what I do, self-sufficiency is key, ( especially in these times). I love to learn all I can from everyone and you are very no-nonsense and straightforward.
I had racoons digging up my new pepper plants a few years ago and found placing bamboo skewers near the pepper plants stopped the racoons from digging them up. They did dig around the areas where there were no skewers though, but the pepper plants were left alone.
just an f.y.i. for anybody who doesn't already know, different plants may have more or less needs of certain nutrients. some do benefit more from calcium and crushed eggshells can greatly benefit these plants. some need potassium, and banana peels help there. other plants benefit from something acidic, and used coffee grounds are great here. i moved into a house with a very sickly rose vine. it never died, but for 2-3 yrs it looked like it was going to die at any time 😕. i looked up natural stuff to use and started saving coffee grounds and other things from the kitchen and using them. also, a coffee shop near my workplace had a basket where you could pick up free bags of used grounds specifically for this. a few months after i started this a tree fell on my roof. the adjuster who came out was an avid gardener, and specifically raised roses. he went absolutely nuts over my beautiful rose bush and wanted to know my secret, because none of his looked near as good.
I had bad experience putting raw bananas peels next to my beautiful Jackson Perkins 🌹 bugs ate threw the roots dry the peels in the sun or cut them into small pieces so roses get the potassium they need
More than 15 years ago my wife and I moved into our home and started gardening a rather large garden. The first few years we had a major problem with tomato end-rot. A neighbor, who is a master gardener, told us that when we plant our seedlings we should add crushed eggshell to the hole. I know you say it’s a myth but, we have hardly seen any tomato and rot since that day. And, that is the only thing we changed in the planting of our tomatoes.
Sir this RU-vidr is making an argument against eggshells because he knows it’s a popular topic amongst gardeners. He is a youngster or a little kid as we would call him in the UK and has no idea about what he is talking about but is purely doing it for views. Egg shells is an ancient method used across all parts of the world by farmers from not so rich countries. Don’t pay attention to this dude and know that most RU-vidrs prioritise views. God bless sir
Has either of you even paid attention to what he said in the video? He clearly mentioned you could add crushed eggshell in your soil, at 3:50. What he was explaining was that using the whole eggshell and expecting immediate benefit from its calcium was not the right way.
Myth: "There is such a thing as weed free topsoil." Usually claimed by a salesman. If you fill your bed in early fall, leave it bare and water it, weeds WILL sprout. GOOD! Using a stirrup hoe, kill them and leave them in place to decompose. Water and repeat until ground freezes. For next year's tomato beds, I sprout the weed seeds in spring while waiting for weather to warm up enough for tomatoes. Over the years, by covering beds when Dandelions bloom, and sprouting weeds and slicing through them, the weed seed load is declining. Once I plant, I side dress with 2-4" of shredded leaves. (I pay kids to drag bags of leaves to my garage.) The home gardener can easily use 200 gallons of shredded leaves a year. All the leaves feed my giant herd of earthworms, who provide micro tunnels to improve soil structure, and worm castings.
True, but the amount of seeds CAN be reduced dramatically over time. Many people don’t do enough hoeing or mowing around the edges to stop seeds from wandering in (blown, tracked, carried, kicked, etc.) And of course, tilling every year encourages weeds compared to no-till.
@@epicgardening I ground my eggshells up into a fine powder and add it to my watering can and my compost bin. It lasts for ages in the watering can and has made a difference to my plants.
You can simply add finely crushed eggshells 1to1 with white or apple cider vinegar and it'll be ready when it's done bubbling (the sign of the chemical reactions) you can just poor some at the base of the plant, it'll be roughly neutral but if you're worried it didn't completely neutralize you can mix it with anywhere from 1 to 1 to 1 to 4 with water and it should still be very effective. The chemical reaction should also sterilize the vast majority of any harmful pathogens like salmonella to the well within safe levels
Not really. Notice he said one part per 1000 of water. I created water soluble calcium into a half gallon jar and I probably have enough of the solution for at least a year or two. It is only applied highly diluted.
Really informative, especially about the blossom end rot. Maybe, you can tell me whether what we did was effective. We take our duck eggshells and dry them out in a dehydrator and then grind them into a fine powder. We add it to our finished compost along with rock dust and add about a cup of the finished compost with each thing we transplant or each thing that comes up from seed. My concern about your garden might be 2-legged pests. Somebody could reach over your fence from the sidewalk and have a free harvest.
Thank you for clarifying about pine needles! Hubby is always going on about how they need to be removed from the garden due to making it acidic. I’m all about mulching and just maybe those poky brown needles might deter to the slugs that are problematic in one garden, which also happens to have high clay content. If you’ve got tips on remedying clay into better soil, I’d be happy to hear.
Thank you! That was helpful... my mom (Oregon Hippy Gardener) always put the crushed eggshells in a big jar with the coffee grounds, and water. The gross tea was then dumped straight into the compost pit. She swore that egg shell coffee tea released the calcium and de acidified the coffee (paper filters included)! Seamed to work! I do It now... so hopefully it’s true! 🤗
I boil them, remove the membranes, dry them in the oven, then grind them in a mortar & pestle. I sprinkle the powder into my potting soil. I like the liquid method 😁
Have been growing tomatoes for 25 years. Any and every time I've had blossom end rot, it's been quickly and effectively eliminated by working finely crushed egg shells right into the soil around the stems over the roots. I've never had it fail.
I use plastic forks/spoons/knifes in my big plants and it works wonders. It might not keep the cats out completely, but it definitely stops them from using them as litter boxes, which was my main issue. I don't consider it wasteful because I clean and reuse them. I started with the ones in my "party" stash and have never had to buy more.
😤 gardening seems like it requires so much patience. I feel like I gotta do some homework & study things. Why can't I just plop things into the ground, water it, & that's it? I live in the country side & don't mind all the random animals. I feed them. But I would've never thought to imagine them as a burden. I think I'm gonna try putting onions & garlic into the ground. .. they can't be intrigued by those things right? Then ill have tomatoes & carrots growing in pots, starting from inside. .. I have a fence in the backyard but it's mainly to keep anything from the back coming in. Nothing is actually fenced in. Damn these animals.
@@ahhwe-any7434 You're right. Gardening does require lots of patience. I used to hate gardening. But I started with one tomato plant, and worked up from there. Start small and work up from there.
Ahhw E-Any Marigolds will deter the deer at least a little. Plant like a fence all the way around & see if that does anything--a fence will help, though. Rabbits won't be deterred.
Thank you. I get very tired of the acidic pine needle bit. I live in deep piney woods of Texas and use the dried pine needles everywhere in the garden. Grow where you are with what you have and reap a bounty!
My grandmother swears by using epson salts around her blueberry bushes. I haven't seen anyone else say anything about this so I want to know if epson salt would help acid loving plants like that. Or is it just a placebo for her. She does have giant blueberry bushes that have been bearing fruit for like 20 years.
I use cinnamon in my espresso maker with the coffee--I put that stuff straight out on top of the mulch layer--of course that's just 1-2 tablespoons per day, so it isn't much...edited: typo
I think burying it could be good. Am a beginner though. Interested to hear from someone who has tried this. Gardening seems so creative with quite a learning curve.
Coffee grinds provide lots of nitrogen for a compost pile but will also add acidity (may be bad depending what you're growing). The real problem is the caffeine. Studies show caffeine may stunt plant growth a d fruit production
@@dalcloud8873 when you dig a hole to plant your plants mix used coffee grounds/egg shells too into the soil and plant your plants. Used coffee grounds are also great to get rid of ants, if you have ants living in your mulch sprinkle it around.
Interesting.. cause I planted my first seeds this year and the ones I planted in the egg shells are HUGE and the ones i planted just in cartons are small or not germinating.. I'll definately take it out of the egg when I plant tho! Binge watching your videos this week LOL ♡thanks!
Have been gardening for years now at the age of 50 Ive learned a lot from my grandmother and mom and dad most of what you just talked about except for the plastic forks and knives I just don't know why anybody would think that would work. I've actually gone to the trouble of taking banana peels egg shells put a little water in my blender and then adding it to the soil then tilling the soil then the plants are the seeds are planted we've been very successful with Gardening thanks for the info enjoy your video
I’ve been gardening for many years. Great watching you! I was wrong on two of them. I always tried to use eggs shells to deter slugs. Don’t think it ever worked😂 thank you! I enjoyed listening to ya!
Eggshells too sharp for snails? I have seen a video of snails crawling over razor blades. They distribute their weight and the slime offers protection too.
I've personally found pointy stuff does work to keep cats out. In my case they were digging holes to crap in. If they can't get a spot to easily dig, they give up. Mulch wasn't doing the job, but pointed sticks set firmly enough to either hinder or stab a digging paw put an end to it. Not an easy solution but it did work.
@Joe Francis I was living in an end terrace house and in the terraced house next door lived a man with 14 cats at last count. We tried everything to deter them from pooping in our flower beds and only breaking wooden kebab skewers into two and inserting them into the ground, pointy ends up and at a slight angle, worked and it was like absolute magic. Never saw the little bug**rs in our garden again once they got the message!!!
I remember my Mom tried composting uncrushed eggshells and they were still there 10 years later! I was always puzzled, when people used eggshells to start seeds in. You end up losing half your plants, if you try to take the seedlings out of the shells, so I don't get it🤷 After many trials and tribulations, I have found the peat pots with the mesh on them work best. Easy peasy! I start seeds indoors, because I live in an area with a shorter growing season.
I personally collect all my egg shells and when they dry I crush and then throw in my ninja grinder then store till use. Last year I grew tomato trees. The plants were around 7 feet tall. I am 100% organic grower. No chemicals of any kind. I will even collect toads and place them in my garden. Or anything else that eats other bugs. And the only one of these myths I have heard is the pine needle one.
@@zemtek420 oh ok. Im in Spokane and my tomatos might get 3 feet if Im lucky. All the smoke from the fire last year cut my sunlight so much that most of my garden never fully matured! Ill try your eggshell technique.
@@brianshissler3263 we're in Portland and as a kid my mom would routinely get five foot tomato plants. She'd put a mushroom/chicken manure mix in the bed before she planted every year. I'm sure she did some other stuff, but the tomatoes loved that!
Good information. Try adding a tablespoon of epson salt to the hole for each of your tomato plants at planting time to assist them with the absorption of calcium in order to prevent blossom end rot. You can also use it as a foliar spray. Strong soil makes for happy, healthy and productive plants.
Love pine needle mulch, fresh ones, got like 75gal of them; clean. Use it on everything from radishes, to tomatoes and potatoes. Living on a property with many big white pines, those trees require a slightly acidic soil but pines rely more on a well drained, dry soil than acidic. By the way, white pines are the pines you want, the smaller needles... green when on the tree, orange when fallen. They help balance the tree's pH but other trees (non-pine) won't like being around them; pines are rather a selfish tree but... so beautiful and virtuous.
Great video! I’ve always wondered if egg shells would help or not. Also, I’ve always had blossom end rot on my tomatoes. I’ll be investing in some drip irrigation or times watering system in the future because I’m terrible at consistent watering.
USE FOR PLASTIC FORKS. I have a friend who caters. Instead of discarding plastic forks, she gives them to me. I run them through dishwasher. When my strawberries set, I use the plastic fork to hold the berry cluster off the ground. Holding them high delays rot. I also use 2" of crushed dry leaves as a mulch.
I’ve used forks to Mark where something is that I won’t see until the next season. Things like bulbs or a new to me perennial that goes dormant all the way to the ground. Just so I don’t go digging my stuff up. Done that before
i saved all my coffee and tea grinds in a bucket for a long time in garbage also added crushed egg shells and minced banana peels with other minced garbage scraps. after i got like 5 gallon bucket filled i simply used it in garden bed or low spots (or rabbit burrows) in lawn ...
I use heavily diluted vinegar and mist my plants to keep animals away. I also discovered that my cat hates pickle juices. Lol funniest reaction she's ever made.
After years of Blossom End Rot, last year I dried, pulverized and added egg shells to the planing of my tomato plants. It worked! First year with no Blossom End Rot. Doing the same this year.
*Myth: I am mulching correctly, as long as keep El mulcho away from El trunko.* *_Truth: Flat is where it's at, just like mother nature mulches trees in her forests._* No donuts rings, no Charlie Brown pitchers mound. Goal is to replace layer of suffocating grass with layer of beneficial mulch in order for more ideal atmospheric oxygen exchange between breathing feeder roots just below grade. Too much suffocating mulch results in New emergency Roots growing above ground throughout mulch layer, becoming a wooden noose tightening around trees own trunk. Now imagine all those unseen roots growing throughout all those above ground mounds you see below trees everyday of the week, especially young trees.
Fordman I know, right? What else do you pack in your lunch for work? Something heavy & noisy? We toss ours in the dishwasher after use & usually get about a year's worth of uses with three of us packing lunch everyday.
I dont know about cats but if you have gophers get a few bars of Irish spring soap slice off 3 or 4 pieces and put them in the gopher hole and cover it up . The gopher may come back but it wont stay they cnt stand the smell . I planted a garden on my property right next to a grove of pecan trees over the coarse of 2 weeks I watched the mounds of gopher holes get closer and closer so I used Irish spring in the holes or dig the mound up about 8 to 10 inches down put in the soap and cover it up . The forward progress of the gophers stopped. It's been 3 weeks and there is no new mounds . 1 bar of soap is enough for 4 gopher holes . This also works for deer and other critters that walk into your garden except you put the soap in a old sock or some kind of material to wrap it in then you put stakes at strategic places in your garden and hang the sock of soap on the stick . This really works good for me so I'm sure it will work for anyone . Good gardening everyone . L8R
My wife bought a new coffee grinder. I kept the old one, and use it to powder my eggshells. After I powder them, I toss the powder in my mulch. Before I run them through the grinder, i let them dry for a day. No mess.
There are a LOT of garden myths... Tilling your soil is good. Wrong. It's the worst thing you can do in your garden. Compost tea, nettle tea are all so good for your soil. Wrong. Compost or weed mulches are better and take a lot less effort. Weeds take water from your crops. Wrong. A naked soil is much worse than weeds for moisture retention. Compost creates humus. Wrong. Compost is only creating humus when paired with wood chips or straw, something with carbon and lignin in it. In fact, better put wood chips alone than compost alone. Mulches will attract slugs. Kinda wrong. The first or second year yes, but then slug predators come and a balance is formed. Slugs will attack everything. Wrong. Slugs only attack your plants if they only have this to feed on. They like fungi first, which they find in wood chips and wood piles. They also prefer cruciferous plants, so sow some canola to feed them. You can't sow if you haven't removed all plant roots. Wrong. Decaying roots are high in nutrients. You can have a cover crop, kill it by rolling it down when flowering, and sow directly in this. This is literally what 80% of crop farmers in Brazil and Argentina do. You can't transplant carrots or parsnips. Wrong. You can, you just got to be careful. It's not worth it though. Weeds are bad for your soil. Wrong. Weeds are an indicator of bad soil. Wrong. If you have lots of dandelions, rumex, nettle and thistle, it means your soil is too compacted and you should stop tilling it, adding mulch and compost instead so that soil life will decompact it for you. I can't use weed cuttings from my garden as mulch or the seeds will propagate and I'll get even more weeds. Wrong. If you don't put any mulch THEN you'll get much more weeds, because there are tons of weed seeds in the soil already, thousands per square meter and they germinate when under the sun, on naked soil and especially tilled toil that mixes those seeds and bring them to the surface. So mulch that soil and don't worry about the seeds. You can't sow onions, garlic or potatoes directly on the ground. Wrong. It actually works. Try it. Many people do it and add a thick layer of mulch on top.
Pippetandpossum as long as they are used they are mostly neutral and good. If they are not used then they can burn your plants. They need to either be used or composted to do good :)
@@jeffbeerkens5286 Compost teas are washed down after the first rain. It doesn't fertilize for long enough, you're better off putting real compost on the ground, or the stuff that makes compost in the first place, raw. If you have kitchen scraps, put them on the ground. it'll fertilize for much longer. Compost tea won't destroy your soil, but it is not the magic liquid people say it is.
@@jeffbeerkens5286 I'm talking about real gardening, outside, in the ground. If you cultivate in containers, then yeah the fertility of the compost tea stays there. Outdoors, the rain will just wash away the nutrients deep in the ground, out of reach from the plants' roots.
Ick! I bake my eggshells to prevent rot & if you blender the eggshels in vinegar, oil & really hot peppers & cinnamon--let sit for about a day for the shell to soak in the other items--then sprinkle it around! Most garden pests do not like the burning sensation of the spices and the eggshell & oils help hold that stuff at the surface. (started writing before hearing your whole post).
I stuck a metal stick in one of my plants soil once to deter birds from picking it and it actually worked, I just thought the metal would reflect light and distract them no one suggested it to me.
You should have used a robtic sounding voice when speaking about the use of egg shells and forks in the garden like the RU-vid videos that advocate the use use these items
The eggshell is best used to pop seeds in,onece seed pops,transplant into coco coir soil medium,as you do simply crush the shell before planting it in new pot
I have come across many videos, but you are very thorough with your subject, it seems you have read and also researched well besides having practical experience. Keep posting videos, my 3 acre organic farm will appreciate it!
i use my eggs shells in the raised beds like this: (inside the raised bed starting from the bottom layer too the top) wood chips / mulch cardboard boxes / paper etc (this and the wood chips stops weeds, and also acts as slow release fertiliser for long periods of time) grass clippings (takes about the same amount of time breaking down as the plants need for the roots too reach it for food) ash / charcol (carbon is great, everyone should add it) horse shit mixed with ground hay / grass (watered by hand daily for 2 weeks before adding too the bed) clean fill (clean dirt) once i have planted all my rows / runs of plants etc, i then place a small layer of mulch / wood chips around the plants too prevent evaporation, as i live in a place where winter temps can reach 30c (86F for all those who choose not too use the universal measuring system like the rest of the world does :P)
@@epicgardening it's a no dig situation, with different layers of goodness that breaks down over the life of the plant, the bigger stuff that fruits love the layering, as they get the super goodness when they need it the most. i would suggest you try a little experiment for the channel and see how it goes, it's an amazing way too recycle a lot of your waste into food ! thanks for the reply !
@@alsinakiria most cats I have seen don't generally eat enough plant material to damage a garden unless you have hundreds of cats in a relatively small area, the damage done to the cats seems seems like it is outside of the scope of this video.
Addition to myth number 3 - check the soil ph as well, before trying to correct the problem by adding or spraying a bunch of different things on or around the plant. Plants have evolved to grow within a certain soil ph range, and thus are adept at being able to uptake what nutrients they need better, within that certain ph range. I find that ph is a most often over-looked key to better plant care.
Coffee grounds are great for keeping slugs and snails out of your garden/potted plants. I live in the Pacific northwest and it's amazing how well works. Coffee grounds will keep cats out of your flower beds as well.
The ability for the plant to be able to move the calcium into the plant you can use Epsom salt right? I heard magnesium is something that helps the plant take in the nutrients easier? Is that right?
You just need more egg shells! Lol like 10lb, which s what I have in the freezer. We'll still gonna put them in the garden, no point in throwing them outk
as far as cats go, they hate the smell of oranges. Placing orange peels in the garden helps. but they dry out and need replacing after a while. Another thing that keeps them out is rose bush branches that you have trimmed from your bushes. The reason is obvious, but is also the reason I don't like them myself. For pine needles, I expect they are like anything else. fresh they are nitrogen and dried they are carbon for your compost. Thanks for the info on blossom end rot. My eggshells go into compost and worms bins anyway. Happy gardening
@@chrstpage81 under the rose bush is not the same as trying to scratch out a pee patch in the dirt. Think of it as laying a bunch of barbed wire down. They won't move them out of the way to get comfortable.
Just turn my yorkie loose on em! Pooping all in my yard. Getting in the creek behind my yard. PEOPLE NEED TO BE RESPONSIBLE PET OWNERS AND RESPECT YOUR NEIGHBORS.
I can definitely confirm and egg shells don’t break down easily. I’ve had some egg shells in my compost tea for over three years and they still look just like the day I put them in there
Yeah, that whole baking, then blendering or grinding them is helpful. I soak mine in vinegar, oil & hot peppers. Turns out the vinegar makes micro pits in the shell surface & the oil helps the capsaicin to adhere...For windows & doorframs I leave out the shells & vinegar & paint that stuff around like it's the first Passover--No more ants enter the building!
I have a variety of large plants that are in & out depending on the season. Plastic forks permanently placed in the plants keep my cat from using them as litter boxes!
I grow ALL my heirloom beefsteak tomatoes in eggshells and they are HUGE juicy tomatoes weighing 2# each! I crush them and mix with compost and grow all kind of plants and it’s an extra added nutrient.
It's literally dirt cheap to grow food. The expensive part is making the neighbors jealous of how pwetty it is. And thinking you need a bunch of expensive tools/equipment. I put up a new garden entirely by hand this year in heavy clay soil consisting of five 32x4 foot raised beds (no boxes just dirt that I mounded up). We have goats, cows, and trees so I collected several feed sacks full (4 cubic yards in total) of decomposed leaves, goat manure, and cow manure and carried them about 100-200 yards by hand to my garden and mixed them in. All the "dirt work" was done exclusively using a garden fork, hoe, shovel, and a rake. It was a lot of work, probably about 60 hours worth of manual labor. But I only spent about $200 on everything (including tools & seeds, but not including the monthly water bill which probably won't be much different.) I put up a fence around it to keep our goats out. I'm not including the price of the fence posts & wire in the cost because most people don't need a goat-proof fence, and it's not really relevant to the cost of making a garden (unless you're like me and decide to build a garden in a field crowded with goats). For seeds, find you a good seed supplier. Don't go to the fancy garden store for seeds. They will almost definitely rip you off. I bought my seeds at a feed store, and generally I get the packages for about the same price, but I'll get at least 10x as many. As a comparison I bought a package of Lima Bean seeds from a garden center, it was like $1.79 and literally had 10 beans in it; at the feed store I bought a 1/2 pound of Pinto Bean seeds for like $1.89 and which works out to roughly 650 beans. Sure, they're different crops. My bean bed has about 500 bean plants. Cost me a couple dollars for the seeds. If I planted them with lima beans from the garden store it would've cost me like $90.
@@collinmckinney7684 I'm a tired old lady and use a Troybilt Bronco rotitiller. 👍😂 I buy my seed at Southern States or Agway, Rural King, few packs of odd seeds at Dollar General Store.
Depends on the food. Where I live has a short growing season so peppers and melons take a lot more effort and expense. But berries offer a great rate of return, especially raspberries and blackberries. Growing your own food is also good for special varieties you don't see in stores, like glass gem corn or purple carrots.
In CA....fruit trees. Briefly lived in a house with a huge grape trellis under the deck, an apple tree, pear tree, plum tree and lemon tree, plus blackberries along one fence....they produced a huge amount of fruit with almost no fuss.
I do the same with my eggshells, except that they go back to the chickens as a free-choice feed supplement. They often need more calcium than what is provided in their feed in order to lay eggs with good quality shells.
I dry the egg shells in the oven like you said, but then I crunch them up and put them into an electric spice grinder. It is like a mini blender. The end result is a powder which is then great to use as fertilizer or worm food for my worm beds. YEA!
We used to use pine needles on our rose gardens when we got hard freezes during the winters! Our bushes were always the first to bloom again after the frost too! My favorite misconception is that you have to prune rose bushes on Valentine’s Day 😂
Idk.. someone told me to use eggshells when my plants were infested with a bunch of caterpillars.. I crushed a ton of shells and threw them over the soil and the caterpillars disappeared. Maybe it was just a coincidence.. but I haven’t had caterpillars since I’ve used the shells
Caterpillars don't typically travel over the soil to get to your plants. There is no reason that egg shells would stop or affect any caterpillars anyway. So I don't know why they'd recommend it. Glad your problem disappeared though! But it definitely wasn't due to the eggshells.
