Egg Shells and White Vinegar

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HarryHood

HarryHood

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has anyone tried this method to make water soluble calcium? and if so how did it turn out for you?
 
quirk

quirk

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Egg shells as a calcium supplement for any plant is one of the great botanical myths.
And I use Vinegar to kill weeds. Only not the weed we grow.
 
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SweetLeafGrow

SweetLeafGrow

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has anyone tried this method to make water soluble calcium? and if so how did it turn out for you?
Yes, I have made and used this homemade cal/mag!

Egg shells as a calcium supplement for any plant is one of the great botanical myths.
And I use Vinegar to kill weeds. Only not the weed we grow.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with quirk here. There is a lot of calcium in eggshells. We have backyard chickens and have a never ending supply. They go in the garden outside, in the compost pile, and yes, into my home made cal/mag supplement. We also crush them up and feed them to the chickens for the much needed calcium they need for nice thick eggshells. Putting the eggshells in the garden does provide a long release calcium supplement to the soil, but it takes time to break it down to a usable form for plants that way. Using vinegar to extract that calcium does work and it's not harmful to plants, at least not to mine. Admittedly, I am in my first grow, and learning a lot, but I have used my homemade cal/mag and my plants are doing well so far.

I think what a lot of folks don't understand about this homemade calcium solution is that you are not just feeding your plants straight vinegar. The vinegar is acidic and chemically reacts with the eggshells and in the process, strips off calcium from the eggshells, which is then readily available to any plants for calcium needs. Also in the process, the acidity of the vinegar is "used up" and will stop reacting with the eggshells once the acid in the vinegar is neutralized. I am sure a chemist can explain this in much more detail, but for the layman, I think it's not hard to understand.

After soaking the eggshells in the vinegar for about a week, I strain that liquid off and mix it at the rate of 1 tbsp calcium mixture together with 1 tsp of Epsom Salt per gallon of water.

I found this idea on youtube from a guy named Bill Ward. He has lots of videos and appears to be a successful grower.
 
oldskol4evr

oldskol4evr

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you can also make your phos this method also
first i didnt here you mention to brown the shells,i do,i brown the egg shells on both sides,yes they smell like crap,do this on a bbq pit works best, browning for calcium,for phos burn them,i prefer bones but egg shells work to,burn them damn near black.
which ever you choose to use ,take your shells bones or what ever and put in a see threw jar mason works great ,but put in the jar and cover the shells with white vinegar ive also used rice vinegar.
then put in a place were you can watch daily,every day just thump that jar,if any bubbles come up wait another day
when you have no bubbles at all it is done
the vinegar myth in your plants is just that a wives tale
in the knf methods it is used for every thing,this is one of the many feeds for that method,if you think it will harm your plants ,wait until you find out using sea water also is in the feed schedule
point being every thing has it place and all fall inline
i can take you to spots on my place were i used the salt,soap and vinegar mix to kill weeds,it dried it up and that about it,couple weeks late it right back
i have also used diesal around my fence line to kill weeds and did for a few weeks and comes back with some of the best and thickest weeds you ever seen
point to take is soil isnt your indoor tub of media ,which ever or what ever it might be,even soil indoor has a limit because there is a bottom to your pot,outdoors were you are in mother earth with no bottom,what you think is a weed killer just filter threw and down into the sub soil,so you are using a mess of killer at all times,in order to really kill weeds truely,which i dont recomend at any level,is salt it will also kill any life in the soil and it wont come back for many many years if at all
 
SweetLeafGrow

SweetLeafGrow

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you can also make your phos this method also
first i didnt here you mention to brown the shells,i do,i brown the egg shells on both sides,yes they smell like crap,do this on a bbq pit works best, browning for calcium,for phos burn them,i prefer bones but egg shells work to,burn them damn near black.
Yea, I forgot to mention that baking the eggshells was a step that the grower took when I learned how to do this. However, I did not brown the eggshells, just put em in a jar with vinegar. You could really see them churn in the jar. From what I understand, browning gets rid of the inner liner from the egg, which helps in the chemical reaction on both sides of the shell. I didn't want to do this because I heard they stink pretty good. I thought it worked just fine that way.

Interesting that you can use bone and also over bake them for the Phosphorus but makes perfect sense.
 
M0nStarNuggety

M0nStarNuggety

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Browning the eggs will just help speed up the process. There is a protective layer on the egg when laid. This coating from the hen will seal and protect the egg. This is why washed eggs from the store must be refrigerated, unwashed farm fresh eggs can go a week or 2 before needing refrigeration if stored in a cool place.
If anyone doesn't believe the eggshells for homemade calcium supplement trick. Then place a whole egg into a jar filled with vinegar, within a day or 2 you will have a shell-less egg with only the inner membrane holding the egg together.
People were farming since before the use of commercial fertilizer, just takes some "effort".
 
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