Egg Shells

Throughout the year I save egg shells. I keep a roasting pan in the sun room and I will rinse the egg shells, then add them to the roasting pan. When it’s about about half full, I’ll bake them. After I’ve used the oven, I stick the roasting pan in there and let them cook for 12 – 15 minutes. Supposedly that kills salmonella that could get into your soil or critters digging around in the garden could get sick.

We usually use about at least a dozen eggs per week, and often more. I don’t save every egg shell. Sometimes I forget, sometimes I’m too lazy to walk out to the sun room and toss them into the “waiting to be baked” container.

Today I had this big roasting pan full, a grocery sack full and a tall kitchen trash bag full of baked egg shells.

Yesterday I put my thick gloves on and crumbled them. I ended up with 7 pounds of crushed egg shells. I read that 1500 egg shells would be about 3 pounds. Not sure if that’s true or not. Maybe the fresh eggs we get from the farmer have thicker shells. At any rate, these eggs will go into the holes when I plant tomatoes, peppers and potatoes and will act as a slow release calcium.

When I used to make food for Speck, I’d bake the shells, then run them through the blender and sift them, then add that to his food for calcium.

It’s going to be cold here for the next few nights and then I’m going to go ahead and plant potatoes. Technically, I shouldn’t do it til after the last frost date, which is April 16, but two things have happened that have made me feel ok about planting the potatoes a couple of weeks early. First, they aren’t going to have any sprouts above ground to be affected by the cold. Second, a few months back, I was removing some of the dirt from my potato grow bags so I could make the load lighter to move them. There were a couple of potatoes that had been left in the grow bags accidentally. They were just fine. We had several nights below zero and, deep down in the dirt, they had not frozen. Then yesterday I was burying some food scraps in one of the raised beds and came across a potato that had been left there and it has sprouted!

I think the new seed potatoes will be just fine.

I have way too many seed potatoes . . which always happens. Vince said “How are we going to store that many potatoes if they all make lots of potatoes?” I say . . what happens if I plant half as many and they don’t produce well? I will can potatoes, freeze dry potatoes, save some in a dark, cool spot and give the rest away. Who wouldn’t want Purple Majesty Potatoes? I have several varieties – Yukon Gold, Kennebec, Mountain Rose and Purple Viking. Most of those varieties are determinate and should be ready in 80 – 90 days, though it may take a bit longer since I’m planting them early.

I’m just ready to get something in the ground and feel like my garden has started.