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fertilizer Egg shells, banana peels as fertilizers

kingduckling

kingduckling

So i keep looking up ways to recycle/fertilize the soil with materials that i might use. Egg shells and banana peels look to be the most common for me. Now sure on how effective they are yet since i just read about them, im thinking of drying out banana peels and egg shells and blending them to a powder and adding them to the top of the soil or directly in the mix. 
Any ideas? experiences etc.
If its  a good idea how much is too much for a plant?
 
CAPCOM said:
Nothing wrong with it at all. Just keep in mind that it will take a very long time for the egg shells to break down and become usable to the plants.
Click to expand...
yeah but when you blend them its transforms into a very very fine powder, would should help a lot, also baking them should make them a bit weaker and easier to break down in  the blender. How much would be too much? Including banana peels.
 
IF you have a compost bin (a lot of cities give tumblers out for free here in Ca.),anything can be composted to be ready for next season.
Side note-Add a few worms to the tumbler for better results...
 
I grow in pots only.
Eggshells etc. don't work very well.
By the time the Cal. gets usable my plants suck...
 
I'd go with planning ahead,if using pots especially.
I use old soil to add stuff to for next season.
BUT I grow year round-we have a VERY short winter.
I use old soil with whatever for the next seasons grow.
 
For banana peels you are best to blend them into a "shake" and use as a liquid fert. They are a great potassium source. It's a well used method in gardens here.
 
Virtually all of my organic compost amendments are added to my wormfarm for processing. This can be more accessible to some people than compost heaps, and can be faster.

If you're using organic compost too, you might want to consider brewing
compost teas, and adding specific ingredients to that.  Blackstrap Molasses is great for teas/composts and contains lots of good things.
 
Egg shells, banana peels, used coffee ground with the filter, dead leaves, grass clippings..... all are healthy for making rich soil. What you're doing is composting them. They're not going to do much good for your plants until they break down and decompose into your soil. Grinding them down will make them break decompose faster. What you're doing is basically turning your plants into miniature composting bins.
 
How much is too much is hard to say. Keep in mind that decomposing organic material has a chemical reaction going on that creates heat. Too much heat will cook your roots. That being said, I doubt individual pots will be enough to create a large amount of heat. Not really sure there....
 
I've had twenty to thirty gallon pots reach 100 to 130 degrees F before, but it was temporary and the heat declined within a week of reaching that mark. A few were up potted directly and for some unknown reason never heated. No raw compost ingredients, just peat/coir, compost and amendments.
 
I personally wouldn't put anything into my soil until it has been composted. Only mature compost goes into my gardens. The reason for that is that as the soil organisms decompose the organic matter, you will theoretically have a drop in plant-available nitrogen. Once the compost is matured and those soil organisms die off, the nitrogen then becomes available again.
 
Would it be enough of a drop to affect plant growth? I dunno...probably not since nitrogen deficiency doesn't seem to be an issue with most gardens. But I like to play it safe. Plus I wouldn't want bigger critters rooting around in my garden and destroying my plants because it smells like a delicious banana/egg smoothie in there! :P
 
I grind egg shells in a coffee grinder and sprinkle it into my compost bin.
Don't accidently inhale that stuff it's brutal. VOE!
I put bananas into the compost bin as well along with anything in the yard that is compostable.
 
crush the egg shells into small pieces. and put them in a gallon jug and fill with hot water and soak overnight. now you have calcium for all calcium loving plants. about 12eggs is good for 1 gal of water.
 
Banana peels should be completely (done) composted before use in soil. Egg shells don't need to be and do not take a very long time to become available. A little is available at a time making them a preferred source of calcium. The last thing you want is an overdose of calcium all at once or to have to keep watering your plants with this and that trying to guess or measure nute levels unless you're doing hydro of course.

Brown material on the other hand, can be put in the soil without composting first. Coffee grounds, peat moss, etc. but can acidify the soil. If you have egg shells in the soil they will break down faster due to it and can help to keep pH in check.

However the wild card is your water supply. Rain tends to be slightly acidic but municipal tap water tends to be slightly alkaline. If you don't have much raw brown material in your soil and always use tap water then your egg shells are going to take a lot longer to break down, but then all mineral availability will be lower in that case too, and yet some people have hard tapwater with minerals in it including calcium so consider your own specific situation as to what your soil needs.

Personally, I reuse the same soil in pots every year but amend it with compost, raw materials like peat moss and coffee grounds, and a ratio of about 1 ground up egg shell per gallon of soil but I don't try to powder the egg shells, just get them to about 2mm diameter.
 
smokemaster said:
IF you have a compost bin (a lot of cities give tumblers out for free here in Ca.),anything can be composted to be ready for next season.
Side note-Add a few worms to the tumbler for better results...
 
I grow in pots only.
Eggshells etc. don't work very well.
By the time the Cal. gets usable my plants suck...
 
I'd go with planning ahead,if using pots especially.
I use old soil to add stuff to for next season.
BUT I grow year round-we have a VERY short winter.
I use old soil with whatever for the next seasons grow.
Click to expand...
how and what cities in CA Can you get a free compost tumbler? That would save me a couple hundred dollars =)
 
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