Quote:
Originally Posted by bower
I have a little experience with oyster shells - a one time thing, when my son was a youngster and had a bad flu I bought a small bag of oysters to make him some broth. The shells got tossed in the garden. Yes I come across one now and then, they are mostly still intact after maybe 20 years.  This is in spite of the shells being boiled to make broth.
We also eat lots of mussels whenever we get the chance, and those shells I toss in the garden - into the paths where foot traffic will crush them up over time. They are much thinner than oyster shells but still are very persistent. It's pointless to put them in the compost because they don't decompose. Eventually they will add calcium to the soil but we're talking on a scale of... maybe hundreds or even thousands of years.   Archaeologists here were able to learn something about the history of native peoples, by the "middens" of mussel shells they left behind in their camps. So... it's not a readily available material for a vegetable garden.
Shrimp and crab shells, fish bones also will decompose in a few years at most or at least will be reduced to very small fragments that add texture until they're all gone. Egg shells I find like this too, the larger fragments persist for longer than fish bones but not as long as shellfish by any means.  |
Yep we were talking above about a way to pulverized all the shells. The bag of oyster shells I linked to are for sized for pullets. So that's going to be pretty finely ground. That would certainly be easier to finish pulverizing. Than say the whole blue point shells I would retrieve from the bay. Now in powder form the nutrients would be immediately available for plant uptake. Right?
Oyster shells are just one ingredient naturally available around here. I am sure just adding a bag of lime would be easier.
I started this post trying to figure out ways to build new rows on top of my hard clay soil. Just like Cole_Robbie has been doing & I didn't want to spend a arm and a leg. I want to do this organically on the upper property. Garden number 1 is not organic and truth be told it doesn't get full sun anyway. The plants are doing good thou I must admit.
I really don't have a lot of leaf material to gather in the fall. I could buy top soil by the yard but i have no way to know whats really in it. It would be hard to say I am organic if I do that. So this is a bit of a challenge for sure.
I am going home to Southern Maryland again tomorrow and i will be checking all the beaches for the seaweed. I think it's a little early still in the summer for mass grass gathering but we shall see. Crabs are in full swing tho, so i will stop by a few places and see if it's a viable option to get some truck loads of shells.
It's a pipe dream but a fun one...