G'day Everyone, speaking of raised beds, if you are in the USA and looking to get some, there are good savings to be had for Good Friday and Cyber Monday here: shop.epicgardening.com/SSME2020 sales end 2nd December. I have an affiliate arrangement with my mate Kevin from Epic Gardening, so I receive a small commission - just so you know... Anyway, thanks for your support and keep getting into it! Cheers :)
Good day mark I've moved my avocado plant about 2 weeks back, I have fish waste I wanted to know should I bury the fish waste in my moved avocado plant or not?
When I was a kid, 1000 years ago, when we'd come back from fishing my father always made me dig a hole and bury the slop beneath a tree or bush. The results were always noticeable even to me as a kid. I've done it now my whole life along with all the kitchen scraps.
Oh my. My dad used to do this Also. Thank for the memories. He used to say that the calcium and protein was good for the plants. I know we had the best garden around.
Goo-day from Adelaide buddy, thanks, my father and his father were always burying something in the garden, the only thing Pop never buried was glass and dead humans, pets went in and we thanked them for their contribution.
For many decades, before changing to raised beds, I used "trench composting" in the in-ground garden, and all kitchen scraps went into the garden. That included seafood scraps. And, the gardens flourished with all of that "compost". Today, with the raised beds, all of that goes into the compost tumblers to provide compost for the beds.
When visiting New York City in NY, a construction worker saw our family watching the crane and called us over to a box that he had gull of giant oyster shells that were found at dig sites in Manhattan. Manhattan used to be under water and oysters used to be all over the area. The shells may fully break down, but I'm guessing it would take an absurd amount of time for them to do so in a garden bed.
I always think of oyster shells and rock dust as amendments that will benefit future garden crops and me more than this year's garden crops and me. Living on the coast, i can get shellfish a bit more easily and usually put seaweed in the beds every other year. Thanks for these pearls odlf wisdom, Mark!
I live on the estuary of East coast Virginia. Our coastal cities were built on top of oyster shells and the like. We even have Shell Rd and Riprap Rd😊 here. Every spring we would till up the garden and we would find tons of oyster shells. My dad just tilled them with the dirt. Now I live a mile or so closer to the Jamez River and I usually come home every weekend with buckets of oysters and seaweed all summer long. It is a blessing!
The roots in the shells are interesting. Not only are the roots feeding off the nutrients, they are feeding the microbes with exudates which in return feed the plant. That's some pretty awesome symbiosis.
Egg shells need to be thoroughly broken down first or it could take years for them to actually be beneficial to plants. Pretty sure mark has a video on this, they say you gotta spice grind them first
It's pretty well-known in Canada (in environmental/nature science circles) where the salmon go up the rivers and die after reproducing, the forests greatly benefit from the fish wasted. Some researchers even used satellite images from year to year and you can see how the forest changes with the amount of fish that come to spawn (and die). And forests where bears leave salmon waste also benefit very much from the nutrients. There are companies that make supplements (for plants) from seafood industry waste. It's all fascinating!!!
Awesome Mark! That's exactly why we included Oyster Shells in the #1 Blend! They are just so good for the soil health and nutrition. Hoping you've had some luck with the blend in your garden so far and looking forward to seeing more! Cheers mark!
We use clam shells and bones in our garden. I used to let them decompose on their own until I found them in the garden years after I put them in there. I always crush them now so they will fit through a 1/4" hardware cloth mesh. We have very acid soil thanks to the pine forest behind the house. To crush them I use a hand post driver tipped upside down, load the shells in the hole and a steel digging/tamping bar to pound them down. I put the crushed bones and shells in the compost that I sift with 1/4" hardware cloth before I use it in the garden. They all end up in the garden but much more readily available to the plants as pre-softened decomposed crush.
G'day Mark, the best thing about those beautiful potatoes is they were the right price ! And that's what oysters are supposed to do, and that is to Instigate good rooting. 😊 Happy gardening everyone around Australia and the rest of the world. Green love from Queensland Australia 💚🌲🌏👍
I live in the US and we have a compost company in Rhode Island that takes all the waste from the docks. The compost you get from them has a lot of shell in it and it is great!
I buy shell grit for the chickens. They tend to eat the larger pieces and leave behind very small pieces. When I empty the bowl, I just throw it in the garden bed (shell dust/tiny grit). As well as the chook poo of course, feathers and all, it all goes in. Sometimes I turn it over, or I let the chickens dig it in if the bed is fallow. Got to get those princesses working!
What we do with our shells from mussels fish bones etc. Stick them in a paper bag (sack). Next time i mow the lawn tip the contents onto some leaves , run over them with the bagger on the mower, tip the lot into the compost bins.
These videos always reinspire me to get out there and try growing fruits and veggies. I typically just care for non-food plants. I always seem to have disappointing results when growing food. Your passion and information is greatly appreciated. Hope to one day get to the point that I get what I expect from food gardening.
I used oyster shell for lime to help grow saltbush and quandong in the Adelaide hills. They actually grew once I added the shells. There was no other lime in the soil.
@Selfsufficientme Thank you for featuring our product in your video! We truly appreciate the support and are thrilled to see it in action. Keep up the great work!
Cheers for the vids mate keep it up learning every day between ur channel the weedy garden, more than farmers,🎉 and chefs harvest farm learning a lot keep it coming
Haha. I always enjoy these bury-something experiments. Love that you said you “never run out of burial space”. I got a bit envious.. I have only one plot to bury some smashed oyster shells a long time ago. Then thought, I got something decomposing there, better not disturb it. Dangit. No room for more!
Oyster shells are alkaline and high on the ph scale (9). If your plants require an acid soil, like Blueberries, you might want to omit the oyster shells. But crab and lobster shells contain chitin, an enzyme that can be used as a fertilizer to boost plant defenses against disease. Soil pH can also determine whether your hydrangeas flowers turn pink or blue.👨🏻🌾
Burying oyster shells in the garden is a great natural method for improving soil health! They add essential minerals like calcium, which helps plants grow strong and vibrant. Plus, they improve drainage and can help balance soil pH over time. I love how this simple and sustainable practice benefits the garden while reducing waste. Definitely going to try this in my own garden! You can check out my video as well on this topic.
Excellent!!! I practice hugulkultur in my raised beds in nw Georgia. The suggestion of using crushed oyster shells for the calcium carbonate as well as deterring slugs is spot on, thank you! One question, after your seafood platter, I noticed you included your lemons… hmmm, is citrus beneficial? I always steered clear of composting the rinds. Very appreciative.
This is perfect we used to use the oyster shells for driveways when living out in the country. Then after a while we scooped all that and throw it into the compost pile😊 I did it halfway and backwards. I didn't like oyster shell dust because I'm allergic to shellfish. So I would throw them in the bin that we use for scraps. Then we moved away in the country I use them to take room up in the potted plants. Most of those oyster shells what bigger than my hand back then
To make your oyster shell more efficient it helps if you mash them into smaller pieces. Using ground and powdered egg shells does exactly the same thing
Ive been doing this for a while now. Although I tend to boil all the shells up outside in a pot for an hour or so, then drain and leave them to dry. You can then pound them with a hammer to break up the shells a bit. Same with the crab and lobster shell. That's also rich in Phosphorus so we should not waste it, it's a precious resource. The plants get the benefits faster and you can always save the liquid as stock. Fish waste benefits if you can add some bokashi, but that is also something you can make yourself.
Started doing this with pork and chicken bones. I make my own stocks, and once I finish the second boil, the bones are soft enough to be made into bone meal or thrown straight in the ground.
Interesting. I have planted many fish guts and remains deep in my garden beds. I used oyster shells in a sharp little circle around fragile transplants to tear up slugs. My pup went crazy trying to dig out the fish guts and also went after blood meal. It was always a battle to keep her away.
I have put mussell shells into compost and a year later I have seen the shells in my compost beds which is hilarious but yes it helps with aeration with my clay soil. I also compost lamb and goat bones which seem like they would decompose slower than other bones but its helpful in the garden.
I bought a 10 kilo bag of seashells Yrs ago Chuck a tiny handful in the blender with my kitchen waste/garden scraps - Then into my redwigler bins. Helps them digest, then out into my soil. Make sense?
I just said the same thing in a comment that if you go to your local restaurant and they serve oysters, they will save them for you and wait until the weekend passes that way they have the most to give you for free
After snorkeling for dinner in Okinawa we would collect some of the prettier cowries to sell. We cleaned them by burying them for a few weeks. Ants would eat the inside and the shells would be clean. Top shells with the live creature we sold to a local bar. Top shells and small neck clams are good trade for other things there. Cowries are sold in art supply stores.
Thanks Mark - we usually end up with a bag or 2 of seafood shells etc (including prawns and oysters) sitting in the freezer after Christmas Day until bin night, so we don’t stink out the neighbourhood in the summer heat. We’ve actually had the silly mistake of one of the kids accidentally throwing out perfectly good food instead of the rubbish 😂 We will now be burying our seafood waste, including crushed oyster shells.
Thanks for the idea Mark! We usually just feed our bug and prawn scraps to the chooks, but I am going to try this next time. (Fellow Queenslander, so seafood is a good part of our diet)
Saw a video recently suggesting it may be better to leave the roots of old plants in the garden instead of pulling put. So just cut off plant at or just below surface level and just plant next crop in the gaps between the old plants. Theory was the roots cultivate beneficial bacteria etc so leaving them in helps next crop as they don't have to start again. And the old roots also aid water penetration into the soil. Would love to hear ur thoughts, and see some experiments 😉
hello! biochemist here. i want to first apologize that i must correct you here. i love your show and have always done nothing but learn from and enjoy your show. firstly, there's no point at all putting shells, bones, or any other such matter in your soils. calcium carbonate is not bioavailable, and the process it breaks down in is so incredibly slow that we achieve nothing. it's literally over centuries, which is why we still find bones in archaeology sites. they can be utilized if first you fire them, converting the insoluble calcium carbonate into a form that is soluble in water. this also has the added benefit of removing all organic matter, which leads into... secondly, you should avoid putting any and all animal matter in your soils. it can lead to the growth of parasites which you certainly don't want then getting onto your veggies and then to your table. also, bacteria that feed on decaying animal matter are more dangerous to people the bacteria that feed on decaying plant matter. it's just not worth the added risk for the small benefit and there are so many other plant wastes that can be used instead. just use literally any of the other brilliant ideas mark has given over the years! thanks again and i will of course keep enjoying and learning from your videos! my potatoes especially thank you, as does my back.
Its very interesting, I live in northen Europe, I use one of those fancy composting bins that helps keep compost warm and oxygenated, basically it can turn any garden or kitchen waste into perfect compost in 6 weeks, if weather is warm enough... I normally dont throw animal products there but I tried mussels and they simply refuse to compose even 6 months in.. ended picking them all out and digging them in the beds as they are.. will see if I can find a trace of them next spring
I would love one video with no speaking just gardening. Don’t get me wrong i have watched almost all of your videos. Just to hear the background noise. The birds ect. Your videos has inspired me to start my own garden. Absolutely love your videos
An old bloke advised me that when planting a tree drop a whole chicken (feathers and all) into the base of the hole. Hi explanation was that bones and feathers give lifetime supply of phosphorus to the tree. Others here have mentioned doing the same with whole fish, likely the same mechanism and benefits.
My grandpa used to bury them all over the yard. Fish weighs every time we went to the ocean fish in Florida used to bury them all over the yard so good.
I work in a restaurant that serves seafood and oysters being one of them what you can do is go to the restaurant and have them save oyster shells for you. They are free and you can get them abundantly and if you time it right you can pick them up after the weekend when they have had their biggest, onslaught of customers.
I hatch and growout my own chickens for eggs and poultry shows. 1 of the downsides is I get a lot of roosters, so I grow them out to about 14 weeks old (just as they start to crow) and process them for our own use. I take the breast fillets off and bone out the rest. The carcasses I turn into chicken stock or chicken soup, all of the feathers, offal, heads, feet, etc I bury in my raised gdn beds and my pumpkin patch...., along with a MOUNTAIN of chicken poo. I currently have the best garden I have had in my 25 years living here. I am getting soooo many vegetables this year (cucumbers, zucchini, (normal, golden and 8 ball) 2 varieties of squash, swiss rainbow chard and basil) that I am literally putting it out the front of our house for people to take for free. When I dig the beds back over after summer all I find is the odd leg bone..., EVERYTHING else is gone..., including the chicken heads. ☺
Oyster meal is just one of many great organic amendments I used to put into my super soil beds for my So Cal medicinal plants. To expensive to source all them now. A seashell blend is available
When i was a kid my dad ate a ton of oysters on the grill with his brothers in the back yard. They tossed the shells i. The chicken run. We haven't had chixkens for 30 years now. This year i prepped the area where the chickens were to add to my garden space. I am still finding peices of oyster shell. The soil where the run was is a million times better than the other side of the yard. It's like a forest floor holding moisture and soft like walking on pillows. We never raked leaves so for probably longer than I've been alive the yard has been feeding itself and it's the best Florida soil I've ever seen. I never feed or water the fruit trees. It's dry season now and the asparagus and squash i put out a month ago has yet to need water even though my areas water table is still low even after the stroms we got. My other property across the street i still have to regularly feed and water. I haven't even mulched the chicken run part yet.
G'day Mark, hope all is going well up on Bribie and all is good down here in Vic. :) I had not thought about oyster shells in the beds but will try it when I have some..... I always put my other seafood waste into the beds directly and have seen a big improvement in the quality of the soil. Oh yeh before I forget I received my white prong today too!! :)
Just a tip. When burying waste in the garden, chop up a lemon into 4 and bury it just under the surface of the soil. Disguises the smell and therefore stop animals from digging it up. This is what farmers when burying a dead animal.
Its so interesting to me that the oyster shells are staying intact so much longer than the lobster shells. I reckon they're just a lot thicker or maybe the material differs in some way
Shell or its CaCO3 content is essential for Fungi who's waste is acidic so it sends out Mycelium to find alkali to neutralise its waste creating nutrients for other organisms including your plants. I would love to find a small shell crusher that reduced shells to mm size grit to turn our few shells into garden lime :) perhaps a jaw crusher powered by a battery drill or similar.
About the pH, I imagine this wouldn't be the best with hard soil - and hard water - but there must be some scraps that do the opposite... My guess is greens?
I have one - I live on suburbia (Sydney) and yesterday I can home to a dead ringtail possum which had recently passed... Unknown cause but it was a hot day so although there was water available it may have died from heat. Torn between the green council compost bin as it was bin night than I thought I'll bury it in the last vacant spot on my vege garden and cover to prevent stray cats digging... I will cover it with greens in a few weeks as I have no idea how long it will take to decompose and I'm not that curious to find out. This was a first for me as my garden is the haven for the local wildlife.
Would egg shells do similar? I've got a severe seafood/mollusc allergy (Epipen needed) so never have any for the garden. Also thank you for reinvigorating my passion for my garden 😊
Should be able to get medium crushed oyster shells at the feed store that is used for chicken grit to make thicker shelled eggs in laying hens. I started a couple of compost bins this summer specificly for black solder fly larva. The compost from those should be rich in chiten. Voracious little devils that consume every bit of kitchen scrap that I produce along with all my junk mail for the browns. Once you have a bin going with them, you can put in cooked foods and meat. They have a pheromone that drives off other flys and gnats. Your climate should be like mine, where it is warm enough year round to keep them going outside.
I eat lots and lots of oysters and i put the shells in the fire.I take this pot ash out with the oystershells and lay them on the round.i hit the shells with the but of the pickaxe and they crush up into tiny bits,They are quie soft after being in the fire.I use this mix i my compost pileand then in the garden
Have been enjoying your gardening for a couple of years it seems. Never works as well for me though. Jimboomba soil is rubbish as is that supplied by all the local landscaping places. Cabbages never grow hearts nor do cauliflower, all going straight to flower stalks. Onions get as big as marbles or less. And the latest, watermelon vines get as big as the first flower appearing then overnight they die as if they had the vine cut off at the roots. But pulling them up shows the root structure seems normal. Bunnings gets business every year and I get little in return. My only success is tomatoes and zucchini and maybe cucumbers. Keep up the good videos, maybe one day it will work for me.
I'm starting to remove shells from my compost as they don't seem to break down very quickly, and after a few years my beds are covered in them. Maybe I need to crush them into a powder first :)
As long as the soil is decent and there is an ok amount of moisture and light... Potatoes are a pretty easy food source. Planted some a couple of years ago and they are still going, they are pretty much self sufficient if you leave some in the ground or replant. I feel farmers have given them a false reputation of being "hard to grow".
Ive had some oyster shells kicking around in the garden for a few years now it seems. They get burried and then show up again and again later. I just put them back into the soil.
G'day Everyone, speaking of raised beds, if you are in the USA and looking to get some, there are good savings to be had for Good Friday and Cyber Monday here: shop.epicgardening.com/SSME2020 sales end 2nd December. I have an affiliate arrangement with my mate Kevin from Epic Gardening, so I receive a small commission - just so you know... Anyway, thanks for your support and keep getting into it! Cheers :)
I have 8 from them love them
Good day mark
I've moved my avocado plant about 2 weeks back, I have fish waste I wanted to know should I bury the fish waste in my moved avocado plant or not?
Thank you! 🎉
in my garden they last for years, don't know what good they are doing but i never have blossom end rot
Hi, why don't you crush before bury? Used to manage some farms in southeast asia, and we almost always dice or smash before applying these inputs.
When I was a kid, 1000 years ago, when we'd come back from fishing my father always made me dig a hole and bury the slop beneath a tree or bush. The results were always noticeable even to me as a kid. I've done it now my whole life along with all the kitchen scraps.
"1000 years ago" 💀
Oh my. My dad used to do this Also. Thank for the memories. He used to say that the calcium and protein was good for the plants. I know we had the best garden around.
The good old days 🫶
🥰lol
@@MystycCheez Close to.
The world is your oyster, Thanks for not being shellfish and sharing your knowledge. You have to wait a long time for these pearls of wisdom.
Come here for the gardening tips, stay for the dad jokes.
👏👏👏
@@p3abo37 awe shucks !
I'm glad he didn't clam up about these facts. We didn't have to winkle it out of him.
I can't buy oysters or lobster any more at Tesco near me. I'd have to go to the Chinese supermarket for real seafood.
My neighbors thought I was nuts for doing this but 6 years later my garden is still flourishing 😊
No they didn’t - don’t lie, only radio hosts tell stories that never happened.
Goo-day from Adelaide buddy, thanks, my father and his father were always burying something in the garden, the only thing Pop never buried was glass and dead humans, pets went in and we thanked them for their contribution.
G'day John! Seems like great memories from your Father and Pop mate. Cheers :)
Well obviously, that's why you keep pigs around!
The microbes will break them down eventually and release that tot he soil like a slow release, Nature always wins
Hey Tony! Well, all we need to do is read your compost book to learn more about how nature breaks waste down into something useful... ;)
For many decades, before changing to raised beds, I used "trench composting" in the in-ground garden, and all kitchen scraps went into the garden. That included seafood scraps. And, the gardens flourished with all of that "compost". Today, with the raised beds, all of that goes into the compost tumblers to provide compost for the beds.
When visiting New York City in NY, a construction worker saw our family watching the crane and called us over to a box that he had gull of giant oyster shells that were found at dig sites in Manhattan. Manhattan used to be under water and oysters used to be all over the area. The shells may fully break down, but I'm guessing it would take an absurd amount of time for them to do so in a garden bed.
Love your programs Mark. You bring joy, smiles, jokes, interesting subjects and you have a lovely dog. Thank you. Many blessings.
I always think of oyster shells and rock dust as amendments that will benefit future garden crops and me more than this year's garden crops and me.
Living on the coast, i can get shellfish a bit more easily and usually put seaweed in the beds every other year.
Thanks for these pearls odlf wisdom, Mark!
I live on the estuary of East coast Virginia. Our coastal cities were built on top of oyster shells and the like. We even have Shell Rd and Riprap Rd😊 here. Every spring we would till up the garden and we would find tons of oyster shells. My dad just tilled them with the dirt. Now I live a mile or so closer to the Jamez River and I usually come home every weekend with buckets of oysters and seaweed all summer long. It is a blessing!
The roots in the shells are interesting. Not only are the roots feeding off the nutrients, they are feeding the microbes with exudates which in return feed the plant. That's some pretty awesome symbiosis.
Hello,
I use egg shells for calcium. Also puting egg shells in watter for few days to watter poted plants is verry good.
Egg shells need to be thoroughly broken down first or it could take years for them to actually be beneficial to plants. Pretty sure mark has a video on this, they say you gotta spice grind them first
@@DR-es5eyYou’re correct Dr. I bake mine for a few mins in the oven (to remove any bacteria), then they’re also easier to grind up.
👍
@@DR-es5ey I just crushed my egg shells with my hands and sprinkle it over the soil. In my garden Keeps bugs out.
Egg shells are good to mix with feed for chickens. They will lay more eggs due to the calcium boost
It's pretty well-known in Canada (in environmental/nature science circles) where the salmon go up the rivers and die after reproducing, the forests greatly benefit from the fish wasted. Some researchers even used satellite images from year to year and you can see how the forest changes with the amount of fish that come to spawn (and die).
And forests where bears leave salmon waste also benefit very much from the nutrients.
There are companies that make supplements (for plants) from seafood industry waste.
It's all fascinating!!!
This vid really made my day. Popped up seemingly out of nowhere. Thanks mate. Subscribed!
Awesome Mark! That's exactly why we included Oyster Shells in the #1 Blend! They are just so good for the soil health and nutrition. Hoping you've had some luck with the blend in your garden so far and looking forward to seeing more! Cheers mark!
Some people used to plant a small fish with each seed.
Native Americans also buried a small fish with each seed.
We use clam shells and bones in our garden. I used to let them decompose on their own until I found them in the garden years after I put them in there. I always crush them now so they will fit through a 1/4" hardware cloth mesh. We have very acid soil thanks to the pine forest behind the house. To crush them I use a hand post driver tipped upside down, load the shells in the hole and a steel digging/tamping bar to pound them down. I put the crushed bones and shells in the compost that I sift with 1/4" hardware cloth before I use it in the garden. They all end up in the garden but much more readily available to the plants as pre-softened decomposed crush.
G'day Mark, the best thing about those beautiful potatoes is they were the right price ! And that's what oysters are supposed to do, and that is to Instigate good rooting. 😊 Happy gardening everyone around Australia and the rest of the world. Green love from Queensland Australia 💚🌲🌏👍
I live in the US and we have a compost company in Rhode Island that takes all the waste from the docks. The compost you get from them has a lot of shell in it and it is great!
Gurry
I buy shell grit for the chickens. They tend to eat the larger pieces and leave behind very small pieces. When I empty the bowl, I just throw it in the garden bed (shell dust/tiny grit). As well as the chook poo of course, feathers and all, it all goes in. Sometimes I turn it over, or I let the chickens dig it in if the bed is fallow. Got to get those princesses working!
What we do with our shells from mussels fish bones etc.
Stick them in a paper bag (sack).
Next time i mow the lawn tip the contents onto some leaves , run over them with the bagger on the mower, tip the lot into the compost bins.
You need to treat them to make the calcium plant available. Heat/vinegar. Google it. He is mis informing.
???
These videos always reinspire me to get out there and try growing fruits and veggies. I typically just care for non-food plants. I always seem to have disappointing results when growing food. Your passion and information is greatly appreciated. Hope to one day get to the point that I get what I expect from food gardening.
My family has an oyster farm, shells aplenty! I should give this a go.
I used oyster shell for lime to help grow saltbush and quandong in the Adelaide hills. They actually grew once I added the shells. There was no other lime in the soil.
Thank you now I understand why I am finding shells all over my garden. 😊❤
Have a wonderful day ❤🙏🏻♾️
this is very interesting method, i tend to throw them into my bbq pit so it is easier to turn powder and mix with my soil, your method is easier
Since last 6 years I am xomposting vegetable waste in cermicompoat tubs. Thank you for your guidance qnd inapuration.
@Selfsufficientme Thank you for featuring our product in your video! We truly appreciate the support and are thrilled to see it in action. Keep up the great work!
Good Day Mark,,,thank you,,i always learn something when i watch your show🌱
Another great video . Keep on gardening and sharing with us all. Such a good person thank you.
That trench shovel is still going strong after all these years, very cool!
Your garden is freaking amazing.
These experiments are my favorite kind of content. Love it!
Cheers for the vids mate keep it up learning every day between ur channel the weedy garden, more than farmers,🎉 and chefs harvest farm learning a lot keep it coming
Haha. I always enjoy these bury-something experiments. Love that you said you “never run out of burial space”. I got a bit envious.. I have only one plot to bury some smashed oyster shells a long time ago. Then thought, I got something decomposing there, better not disturb it. Dangit. No room for more!
Well...I was not surprised to see so many shells intact
Oyster shells are alkaline and high on the ph scale (9). If your plants require an acid soil, like Blueberries, you might want to omit the oyster shells. But crab and lobster shells contain chitin, an enzyme that can be used as a fertilizer to boost plant defenses against disease. Soil pH can also determine whether your hydrangeas flowers turn pink or blue.👨🏻🌾
So great to use what you have!
Burying oyster shells in the garden is a great natural method for improving soil health! They add essential minerals like calcium, which helps plants grow strong and vibrant. Plus, they improve drainage and can help balance soil pH over time. I love how this simple and sustainable practice benefits the garden while reducing waste. Definitely going to try this in my own garden! You can check out my video as well on this topic.
Excellent!!! I practice hugulkultur in my raised beds in nw Georgia. The suggestion of using crushed oyster shells for the calcium carbonate as well as deterring slugs is spot on, thank you! One question, after your seafood platter, I noticed you included your lemons… hmmm, is citrus beneficial? I always steered clear of composting the rinds. Very appreciative.
This is perfect we used to use the oyster shells for driveways when living out in the country. Then after a while we scooped all that and throw it into the compost pile😊 I did it halfway and backwards. I didn't like oyster shell dust because I'm allergic to shellfish. So I would throw them in the bin that we use for scraps. Then we moved away in the country I use them to take room up in the potted plants. Most of those oyster shells what bigger than my hand back then
To make your oyster shell more efficient it helps if you mash them into smaller pieces. Using ground and powdered egg shells does exactly the same thing
I tried washed shell grit this year for my giant pumpkins..awaiting the out come
Ive been doing this for a while now. Although I tend to boil all the shells up outside in a pot for an hour or so, then drain and leave them to dry. You can then pound them with a hammer to break up the shells a bit. Same with the crab and lobster shell. That's also rich in Phosphorus so we should not waste it, it's a precious resource. The plants get the benefits faster and you can always save the liquid as stock. Fish waste benefits if you can add some bokashi, but that is also something you can make yourself.
Started doing this with pork and chicken bones. I make my own stocks, and once I finish the second boil, the bones are soft enough to be made into bone meal or thrown straight in the ground.
Interesting. I have planted many fish guts and remains deep in my garden beds. I used oyster shells in a sharp little circle around fragile transplants to tear up slugs. My pup went crazy trying to dig out the fish guts and also went after blood meal. It was always a battle to keep her away.
Thanks Mark everything you wish yourself and those precious to you for xmas and the years to follow
Thanks Phil! Merry Xmas to you too mate :)
Looks like a successful test, winner winner seafood dinner!! 😊😊
I have put mussell shells into compost and a year later I have seen the shells in my compost beds which is hilarious but yes it helps with aeration with my clay soil. I also compost lamb and goat bones which seem like they would decompose slower than other bones but its helpful in the garden.
I bought a 10 kilo bag of seashells Yrs ago Chuck a tiny handful in the blender with my kitchen waste/garden scraps - Then into my redwigler bins. Helps them digest, then out into my soil. Make sense?
Oooh! Being a resident of Florida, I have access to LOTS of oyster shells! LOL!
Lucky you ❤️ Can you send some to England please 😋
I just said the same thing in a comment that if you go to your local restaurant and they serve oysters, they will save them for you and wait until the weekend passes that way they have the most to give you for free
After snorkeling for dinner in Okinawa we would collect some of the prettier cowries to sell. We cleaned them by burying them for a few weeks. Ants would eat the inside and the shells would be clean. Top shells with the live creature we sold to a local bar. Top shells and small neck clams are good trade for other things there. Cowries are sold in art supply stores.
Thanks Mark - we usually end up with a bag or 2 of seafood shells etc (including prawns and oysters) sitting in the freezer after Christmas Day until bin night, so we don’t stink out the neighbourhood in the summer heat. We’ve actually had the silly mistake of one of the kids accidentally throwing out perfectly good food instead of the rubbish 😂 We will now be burying our seafood waste, including crushed oyster shells.
Thanks for the idea Mark! We usually just feed our bug and prawn scraps to the chooks, but I am going to try this next time. (Fellow Queenslander, so seafood is a good part of our diet)
Saw a video recently suggesting it may be better to leave the roots of old plants in the garden instead of pulling put. So just cut off plant at or just below surface level and just plant next crop in the gaps between the old plants. Theory was the roots cultivate beneficial bacteria etc so leaving them in helps next crop as they don't have to start again. And the old roots also aid water penetration into the soil. Would love to hear ur thoughts, and see some experiments 😉
I’ve been doing this for years, like Charles Dowding. Works fine.
hello! biochemist here. i want to first apologize that i must correct you here. i love your show and have always done nothing but learn from and enjoy your show.
firstly, there's no point at all putting shells, bones, or any other such matter in your soils. calcium carbonate is not bioavailable, and the process it breaks down in is so incredibly slow that we achieve nothing. it's literally over centuries, which is why we still find bones in archaeology sites. they can be utilized if first you fire them, converting the insoluble calcium carbonate into a form that is soluble in water. this also has the added benefit of removing all organic matter, which leads into...
secondly, you should avoid putting any and all animal matter in your soils. it can lead to the growth of parasites which you certainly don't want then getting onto your veggies and then to your table. also, bacteria that feed on decaying animal matter are more dangerous to people the bacteria that feed on decaying plant matter. it's just not worth the added risk for the small benefit and there are so many other plant wastes that can be used instead. just use literally any of the other brilliant ideas mark has given over the years!
thanks again and i will of course keep enjoying and learning from your videos! my potatoes especially thank you, as does my back.
Its very interesting, I live in northen Europe, I use one of those fancy composting bins that helps keep compost warm and oxygenated, basically it can turn any garden or kitchen waste into perfect compost in 6 weeks, if weather is warm enough... I normally dont throw animal products there but I tried mussels and they simply refuse to compose even 6 months in.. ended picking them all out and digging them in the beds as they are.. will see if I can find a trace of them next spring
I would love one video with no speaking just gardening. Don’t get me wrong i have watched almost all of your videos. Just to hear the background noise. The birds ect. Your videos has inspired me to start my own garden. Absolutely love your videos
Your jokes crack me up! Thanks for sharing! Lrt "Nature" do the work!
An old bloke advised me that when planting a tree drop a whole chicken (feathers and all) into the base of the hole.
Hi explanation was that bones and feathers give lifetime supply of phosphorus to the tree.
Others here have mentioned doing the same with whole fish, likely the same mechanism and benefits.
My grandpa used to bury them all over the yard. Fish weighs every time we went to the ocean fish in Florida used to bury them all over the yard so good.
I work in a restaurant that serves seafood and oysters being one of them what you can do is go to the restaurant and have them save oyster shells for you. They are free and you can get them abundantly and if you time it right you can pick them up after the weekend when they have had their biggest, onslaught of customers.
Love your work Mark.
I hatch and growout my own chickens for eggs and poultry shows. 1 of the downsides is I get a lot of roosters, so I grow them out to about 14 weeks old (just as they start to crow) and process them for our own use. I take the breast fillets off and bone out the rest. The carcasses I turn into chicken stock or chicken soup, all of the feathers, offal, heads, feet, etc I bury in my raised gdn beds and my pumpkin patch...., along with a MOUNTAIN of chicken poo. I currently have the best garden I have had in my 25 years living here. I am getting soooo many vegetables this year (cucumbers, zucchini, (normal, golden and 8 ball) 2 varieties of squash, swiss rainbow chard and basil) that I am literally putting it out the front of our house for people to take for free. When I dig the beds back over after summer all I find is the odd leg bone..., EVERYTHING else is gone..., including the chicken heads. ☺
Oyster meal is just one of many great organic amendments I used to put into my super soil beds for my So Cal medicinal plants. To expensive to source all them now. A seashell blend is available
Since I watch your channel, I feed my tomatoes like carnivorous. 😅 My husband waits for the day I'll bury a whole chicken. 😇
Thanks Mark this will be helpful
All of your videos have been informative
When i was a kid my dad ate a ton of oysters on the grill with his brothers in the back yard. They tossed the shells i. The chicken run. We haven't had chixkens for 30 years now. This year i prepped the area where the chickens were to add to my garden space. I am still finding peices of oyster shell. The soil where the run was is a million times better than the other side of the yard. It's like a forest floor holding moisture and soft like walking on pillows. We never raked leaves so for probably longer than I've been alive the yard has been feeding itself and it's the best Florida soil I've ever seen. I never feed or water the fruit trees. It's dry season now and the asparagus and squash i put out a month ago has yet to need water even though my areas water table is still low even after the stroms we got. My other property across the street i still have to regularly feed and water.
I haven't even mulched the chicken run part yet.
thank you for the video. I wonder how well sandy calciferous soil would improve with crushed oysters - say 5 crushed shells per square metre
G'day Mark, hope all is going well up on Bribie and all is good down here in Vic. :) I had not thought about oyster shells in the beds but will try it when I have some..... I always put my other seafood waste into the beds directly and have seen a big improvement in the quality of the soil. Oh yeh before I forget I received my white prong today too!! :)
You have some great oyster pearls there in the form of potatoes.
Just a tip. When burying waste in the garden, chop up a lemon into 4 and bury it just under the surface of the soil. Disguises the smell and therefore stop animals from digging it up. This is what farmers when burying a dead animal.
Good idea, just be mindful on how much lemon because worms don’t like acidic compost 👍
Its so interesting to me that the oyster shells are staying intact so much longer than the lobster shells. I reckon they're just a lot thicker or maybe the material differs in some way
This made me curious. I have recently been given a food scrapes waste bin. Apparently you can put anything into it except oyster shells. Specifically.
Shell or its CaCO3 content is essential for Fungi who's waste is acidic so it sends out Mycelium to find alkali to neutralise its waste creating nutrients for other organisms including your plants. I would love to find a small shell crusher that reduced shells to mm size grit to turn our few shells into garden lime :) perhaps a jaw crusher powered by a battery drill or similar.
Been using oyster shells for years
Sometimes I pound them in the mortar and pestle before applying
Good morning from NZ ...
Merry Christmas and happy new year 🎊
About the pH, I imagine this wouldn't be the best with hard soil - and hard water - but there must be some scraps that do the opposite... My guess is greens?
Lovely rich soil.
I have one - I live on suburbia (Sydney) and yesterday I can home to a dead ringtail possum which had recently passed... Unknown cause but it was a hot day so although there was water available it may have died from heat. Torn between the green council compost bin as it was bin night than I thought I'll bury it in the last vacant spot on my vege garden and cover to prevent stray cats digging... I will cover it with greens in a few weeks as I have no idea how long it will take to decompose and I'm not that curious to find out.
This was a first for me as my garden is the haven for the local wildlife.
😂👍🦪 Oyster Thumb's Up for you my brother! God Bless!🥔🌿🥔🌿🥔
Thanks ❤❤❤🌼🌺🌸🌷
Would egg shells do similar? I've got a severe seafood/mollusc allergy (Epipen needed) so never have any for the garden.
Also thank you for reinvigorating my passion for my garden 😊
For sure! Egg shells are great for the garden and work similarly. Cheers :)
I use egg shells I have a bucket to throw the shells in and we them up and add them to the soil.
We've got seashells still in its normal form years after we put them in the garden, something like 10 years or so and they havent broken down.
Love your content, cheers from canada
Should be able to get medium crushed oyster shells at the feed store that is used for chicken grit to make thicker shelled eggs in laying hens. I started a couple of compost bins this summer specificly for black solder fly larva. The compost from those should be rich in chiten. Voracious little devils that consume every bit of kitchen scrap that I produce along with all my junk mail for the browns. Once you have a bin going with them, you can put in cooked foods and meat. They have a pheromone that drives off other flys and gnats. Your climate should be like mine, where it is warm enough year round to keep them going outside.
I eat lots and lots of oysters and i put the shells in the fire.I take this pot ash out with the oystershells and lay them on the round.i hit the shells with the but of the pickaxe and they crush up into tiny bits,They are quie soft after being in the fire.I use this mix i my compost pileand then in the garden
Good evening, how you going?
Surely you could use your fish heads and prawn bits to make seafood stock firs, Mark?
mark you would make a top arm wrestler with those forearms, keep up the great videos
Here in the USA we can buy crushed oyster shells to mix in with the feed for our chickens.
Have been enjoying your gardening for a couple of years it seems. Never works as well for me though. Jimboomba soil is rubbish as is that supplied by all the local landscaping places. Cabbages never grow hearts nor do cauliflower, all going straight to flower stalks. Onions get as big as marbles or less. And the latest, watermelon vines get as big as the first flower appearing then overnight they die as if they had the vine cut off at the roots. But pulling them up shows the root structure seems normal. Bunnings gets business every year and I get little in return. My only success is tomatoes and zucchini and maybe cucumbers. Keep up the good videos, maybe one day it will work for me.
Well done..
I'm starting to remove shells from my compost as they don't seem to break down very quickly, and after a few years my beds are covered in them. Maybe I need to crush them into a powder first :)
As long as the soil is decent and there is an ok amount of moisture and light... Potatoes are a pretty easy food source. Planted some a couple of years ago and they are still going, they are pretty much self sufficient if you leave some in the ground or replant.
I feel farmers have given them a false reputation of being "hard to grow".
Ive had some oyster shells kicking around in the garden for a few years now it seems. They get burried and then show up again and again later. I just put them back into the soil.