Takes a couple of weeks. I do it shortly after planting and I'm good for the rest of the season. You need to crush them pretty fine so it releases the calcium into the soil fairly quickly.
Good to know, thanks. I may save them in the spring and pulse them in the food processor so I have some for planting. Does your application last for the season or do you reapply at some point?
I do the same. I have one of those big tumbling 2 chamber compost barrels at the end of one of my gardens, and all scraps, including egg shells and coffee grounds, go in there. Everything except protein.
I've read about people putting a tums in each tomato hole before planting. Not sure how well that works but it makes sense
I could see it working because of the calcium content. The egg shells are free which is a big part of the attraction for me.
Just a heads up to you and anyone else about the eggshell thing; if you have a coffee grinder, it works a lot better and you get a more finely ground product than a food processor.
It'll definitely help and be fine for all of your garden, but you're going to want to add calcium for your tomatoes. You won't get calcium in a water-soluble solution and without it you end up with blossom end rot problems.
Yep. I use a kitty litter looking granular fertilizer that I apply quite heavily many times during the season. Over and above the other water soluble fertilizers I use. If all you use is a water soluble tomato fertilizer you’re missing out.
Another thing to keep in mind about blossom end rot is soil drainability. My first two years of growing tomatoes I had them in the ridiculously bad draining clay soil we have around here and I was trying to amend like hell for my tomatoes, particularly the olpalka paste I had that got it the worst, with no success. I eventually just made a garden with premade garden topsoil for the first 10-12 inches. Blossom end rot vanished. Proper drainage helps promote nutrient uptake. With the crap top soil around me I don't even know what a fucking loam is.
High, high winds and the ever increasing heat are stressing things some, but that makes for a lot of good produce.Supposed to be 97 today, 102 tomorrow. Anyway, the garden on 6/29:
Yeah... everything is coming in pretty well so far. Pepper density is so not a problem.... tons of peppers and flowers everywhere. View attachment 18381
You folks inspired me to pot some tomatoes and a green pepper. The deck is the only spot in the yard not completely shaded by trees, so an actual garden is out. I got them in early, and have paid a lot more attention to them this year, so the tomatoes are looking great. The pepper on the other hand grew like gangbusters, developed some flowers/young peppers, then just stopped dead in it’s tracks. I Water every day so I may need some fertilizer. Any advice is welcome.
I found I was overwatering my peppers. By a lot. Ignored them for a bit, 2-3 days at a time, and they went nuts.
I’m trying to grow some basil and the wife picks this hydroponically grown stuff up at a farmers market for 3.00: She brought some hone a few weeks ago and I tried planting it in our herb garden. It immediately wilted. She asked the guy and he said not to do that, just keep it in water. Okey dokey then. Seems like it wouldn’t get a lot of nutrients that way, but I’ll try it. Edit: No idea why it rotated, but you get the picture ( no pun intended ).
I had fantastic indoor basil. Like “wtf am I going to do with all this basil” good fortune. Took it outside in the pots and left them in the shade and watered them. They aren’t doing as well as they were inside, but not badly either.
Guessing they were just shocked by the temp change. I bought a handful of basil plants from the store and left them in my trunk. They wilted and had black spots the next morning. Theyve been in the ground a week and have bounced right back.
Nett, How often are you refilling your beds? We've had almost no rain for about two weeks and other than the initial fill 3wks ago, I've had a negligible drop in the water level in mine. The soil feels moist and none of the plants look wilted, so I don't think there's any issues, just surprised at how much water is still in it. I'm thinking its a sign we can plant everything closer together and add more to it, but how dense is too dense?
I water the seedlings until they get some major roots to take advantage of the wicking beds/soil. I have one bed with some beets and radishes and cucumbers I planted from seeds, and so I water it every couple of nights. My one bed (the most recent one) was constructed a bit better than the first one, and it overflows with a bit of watering... like... 3 mins? So basically, 3 mins of a high-spread fire nozzle and the overflow is flowing. The other one has a leak in it (fucking hell!) and kind of the same deal... a bit of water and it starts to come out of the leaking area. So yeah, I haven't had to refill them yet this year. That's why I really love these beds... they are SO water efficient it's nuts. Especially this year now that I'm using mulch. First year for mulch, and it really does seem like it's keeping the moisture in place. I'm kind of scared to just not water them and let the beds do their thing... I treat it more like a safety net in case I forget to water them or it gets stupid hot out. Like this week... crazy heat wave. I'll post some pics tomorrow and you can see just how nuts everything is going.