I really tried to come up with some kind of she sells sea shells title, but it was alliteratively exhausting.
Things that come in shells are delicious. There is no exception to this rule. Eggs? My goodness, is there anything better? Clams, scallops, lobsters, crabs? They may even top eggs on the scale of deliciousness. Turtles? Fantastic! Shy adolescents? Okay, not so tasty even when they do come out of their shells.
But.. we eat a lot of things in shells (how adorable that they think the shells will protect them from us!) and normally just toss the shelly bits away. Stop! Stop being a shelly bit tosser! They add tons to the world of your compost pile. Calcium, magnesium… ummm.. byzantium, chrysanthemum, and uh… other mums. All of it good.
Egg shell or sea shell bits can often just be mashed into pieces and chucked right into the pile, but I like to cook them first. Mostly because it makes smashing them up easier and warm. But it also kills any lingering nastiness like salmonella on them. Here’s what you do:
- Eat something that comes in a shell. Eggs work nicely. I heard of this one recipe for eggs that are scrambled! Try it.
- Save the shells.
- Heat your oven to 250 degrees F – less if you use celsius lingo.
- Spread the shells out on a baking sheet.
- Cook them for 20 minutes.
- Remove them.
- Place them into a bag of some kind – use one with a closed bottom and an open top to ensure you can put things in without having them fall out. A bag with sides is also good.
- Mercilessly smash the shells into bits. It’s fun to smush them with your fingers. It’s even more fun to hit them with a rock, a turtle, or a shy adolescent. (Hint: Save the turtle or adolescent for future culinary indulgence.)
- Add the smashed bits into your compost pile or right into your soil. (Great for tomatoes to help avoid the dreaded blossom end rot that can be caused by a calcium deficiency.)
- You can also consider making an egg shell/sea shell tea by soaking the bits in water for a few days. The tea will be chock full of shelly, minerally goodness and you can spread it onto your calcium loving plants.
That’s it! Happy shelling!
Update: Deb from auntdebbisgarden has a good tip too in the comments below. Use the water you’ve boiled eggs in to water your tomatoes. Thanks Deb!
Filed under: Uncategorized , composting shells, egg shells and compost, sea shells and compost, shells for compost
Great tips, I always add my eggshells to my compost pile. I just didnt’ realize you could add the shells from shellfish to the bin. The shy adolescent part, lol.
If you go to the beach, collect shells and seaweed. Great for the garden. In fact, get some fish too! Bury them in the soil… great for just about any plant. Shy adolescent part.. i really am a doofus! I can’t help it. Half the time I don’t know what’s going to come out of my fingers when I type. Thanks!
some shellfish shells wont disintegrate as easily, such as crab
That is great advice. Everytime we have clams or mussels I do this, but I have not made a tea! excellent idea. i will try that, epecially for the tomatoes!!
Regards,
Philip
Thanks Philip. The tea is great especially when you do it with egg shells.
Yeah, Stop being a shelly bit tosser!
I actually composted crawfish shells last summer. I just buried them deep in the pile and the broke right down. I water my tomatoes with the water I use to boil eggs in. Works great. Great suggestions on uses for adolescents. hahaha.
Great suggestion on the water from boiled eggs.. going to add that one.
Another classic post—thanks!!! Love Aunt Debbi’s tip on using the egg water, too. We add crushed eggshells to our compost heap and also put them in the earthworm composter. The earthworms ignore them, but when we put the finished earthworm compost around our tomatoes, they get the calcium hit too!
Thanks! Next year is the year for me to get an earthworm composter. Perfect to add the egg shells.
Great ideas! I always toss my egg shells into the compost, but they do take quite a while to decompose when they are in big chunks (like I usually leave them). I will have to use your advice next time. I love the idea about the egg cooking water, too. Good stuff! Thanks a bunch.
I don’t know why.. but it’s really fun to smash the shells up! Cook them and they become very brittle.
I’ve been tossing my egg shells in raw (after crumbling them up) but I wondered about the salmonella risk.
Hmmm, crawfish shells. I can just see it after the annual family crawfish boil next February going from table to table scraping the shells into a bucket.
First of all.. I want in on that family crawfish boil. Fantastic. Second… well.. i don’t want to underfreak out about salmonella… but you’re probably fine tossing them into the compost. If you are composting for a long time, and the core is getting hot (160 F and more) you’ll eventually cook the salmonella anyway. But it’s nice to cook the shells, kill the stuff right away, and be able to crush it more easily.
Thats great. I had no idea you could use sea shells for the compost too! Next time I eat some shell fish I will be sure to think about you!!
Many Thanks!!
It’s a fun reason to collect shells. And a damn fine excuse to eat shellfish!
Wow! A whole new level to composting. I add crushed egg shells, but never thought of sea shells. And we have plenty of those. Thanks for this!