Make Your Own Calcium for Soil Enrichment

From year to year our gardens get depleted of calcium and other nutrients that plans absorb as they grow. It’s important to replenish those nutrients in spring so we can grow successful crops. Here’s how I am reusing egg shells to amend my soil with calcium this spring.

Egg shells are full of calcium and are a great way to amend your soil. Tomatoes need a ton of calcium to prevent blossom end rot, so I plan on adding these shells to the soil when I transplant my tomatoes in spring.

Use whatever egg shells you have. It might be beneficial to save them in the back of the fridge or the freezer as you use them and do it in a big batch like this. My cousins happened to be baking a lot over the weekend and they saved these for me.

To bake off any egg yolk and bacteria, bake them in the oven at 350* for 15 mins. This will also make them shelf stable. So they won’t mold while you’re waiting to use them.

After the come out of the oven allow them to cool.

I added mine a ziplock back a few at a time and let my little helper smash them with a rolling pin. It gave him a fun kid activity to do and work on some gross motor skills! Who doesn’t want to crush stuff?!

Be careful with little hands and fingers, these are brittle and can be sharp!

I spent a few more mins on the egg shells to further crush them after my little helper. If you want this to be a really fine powder you can add them to a blender! I was ok with these pieces though. They’ll be just fine for planting with tomatoes.

I put them in a large mason jar to store while I’m waiting to use them!

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A post shared by Kristin | Modern Homesteading for Busy Women (@homeonlibertyhill)

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