On Mar 11, 7:34*pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:

Add pulverized egg shells (put in blender with some water) to your
lawn. Egg shells breakdown slowly, so you won't get a quick
response, but they will break down eventually.

Get serious. *Ted already has enough goofy advice. * If the lawn is
no bigger than 3m square and he has 5 years to wait this is a good
idea.

David

Explain your goofy response.

I appreciate your aim of re-use and recycle but in this case it isn't
practical.

How many eggs do you have to eat to get enough shell to spread on a yard?
Sure it depends on the size of the yard but we are talking about some kilos
of egg shell.

How fine can you grind it? *Not very fine without a mill. *Fine garden lime
or gypsum will take months to work, ground shell will be much coarser and
take years.

David- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Actually you can David, a quick method is to microwave them for a
minute to cook up the leftover liquid inside, put in a coffee grinder
dry...they powder up really well, but as you said, that is a lot of
eggs!

On Mar 11, 10:53*pm, "FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:

Add pulverized egg shells (put in blender with some water) to your
lawn. Egg shells breakdown slowly, so you won't get a quick
response, but they will break down eventually.

Get serious. *Ted already has enough goofy advice. * If the lawn is
no bigger than 3m square and he has 5 years to wait this is a good
idea.

David

Explain your goofy response.

I appreciate your aim of re-use and recycle but in this case it isn't
practical.

How many eggs do you have to eat to get enough shell to spread on a yard?
Sure it depends on the size of the yard but we are talking about some
kilos of egg shell.

How fine can you grind it? *Not very fine without a mill. *Fine garden
lime or gypsum will take months to work, ground shell will be much coarser
and take years.

IMO, if the OP wants to add calcium, all he/she needs to do is to just find
someone who still has a wood burning fireplace/heater, then s/he could just
spread the seived ash which contains calcium. *It should be spread thinly
like icing sugar (confectioner's sugar in USian) on the top of a Victoria
Sponge cake.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_ash

For nitrogen I'd spread 'your friend and mine' - good old blood and bone.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,

And then there are the modern methods with known weights and measures

Gunner wrote:
On Mar 11, 7:34 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Billy wrote:
In article ,
"David Hare-Scott" wrote:

Billy wrote:

Add pulverized egg shells (put in blender with some water) to your
lawn. Egg shells breakdown slowly, so you won't get a quick
response, but they will break down eventually.

Get serious. Ted already has enough goofy advice. If the lawn is
no bigger than 3m square and he has 5 years to wait this is a good
idea.

David

Explain your goofy response.

I appreciate your aim of re-use and recycle but in this case it isn't
practical.

How many eggs do you have to eat to get enough shell to spread on a
yard? Sure it depends on the size of the yard but we are talking
about some kilos of egg shell.

How fine can you grind it? Not very fine without a mill. Fine garden
lime or gypsum will take months to work, ground shell will be much
coarser and take years.

David- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Actually you can David, a quick method is to microwave them for a
minute to cook up the leftover liquid inside, put in a coffee grinder
dry...they powder up really well, but as you said, that is a lot of
eggs!

That may be of some use but I doubt that it is a fine as a high quality
garden lime. What we need to be sure is some measure of the grain size but
that is unlikely.

For those who are wondering what we are jabbering on about this is the
issue. Garden (agricultural) lime is calcium carbonate which needs to
dissolve in the water in the soil to be effective in either supplying
calcium or raising pH. The problem is that lime is only very slightly
soluble in water. Look at all those limestone and marble monuments (also
calcium carbonate) around the place, they last for thousands of years
(unless you get acid rain like the parthenon). The method of speeding up
the process is to grind it finely which increases the surface area and so
the rate of solution, even so it takes months to work. The degree of
fineness matters. Take a cube one centimetre on the edge, its surface area
is 6 sq cm. Grind it into grains 0.1 cm on edge, the surface area is now 60
sq cm, grind it finer to .01 cm on edge and the area is now 600 sq cm.

A new lime supplier started up round here who was cheaper than the rest.
The farmers who lime their pasture though this was great until they realised
that it was not as fine as the stuff they were used to.

David

David Hare-Scott wrote:
songbird wrote:
David Hare-Scott wrote:
Ted Shoemaker wrote:
...
So let's add compost. But, in order to add enough calcium in
compost form, I'd have to add several inches (in vertical depth) of
of compost. That would smother the lawn. Nope. Not gonna do it.
I don't want to re-plant the lawn.


Compost is good for depleted soil for many reasons but it will not
increase calcium very much if at all.

if you add enough to improve the habitat for
worms they will increase calcium levels. worms
do secrete calcium.


The worms will just recycle the calcium already in the environment so this
would have no net effect.

no net effect if you are looking at it
from a physical/chemical component level.
i think that differs if you look at it
from a nutrient tied up in certain forms
level and how the worms actually ingest
and alter the soil they ingest.

if a worm ingests a calciferous fragment
they will grind it in their gizzard along
with everything else they ingest. add to
that secreted calcium. i think all of
these things would increase available
calcium in the soil (which is what is more
important to plants than calcium levels
tied up in forms that aren't very
accessible).

wish i had a lab set up for this sort
of thing as i think the experiments would
be interesting in and of themselves.


also many plants do have calcium, that doesn't
disappear when compost is made (or if it does
where does it go?).


All plants have calcium (but not much) and it doesn't go away when they die
or are composted (unlike nitrogen). However this is a very inefficient way
to add calcium to your soil, especially if the compost came from your
calcium depleted soil in the first place.

i suspect the original poster is talking
about adding additional compost from another
source.


just be careful as adding too much compost all
at once will likely encourage fungal diseases (
if you smother the grass).


Obviously I can't believe everything I hear or read.

What do you suggest?

Thank you.


Ted where did you get this information? Have you tested the pH? If
not do so before you act.

agreed.

but really, it makes more sense to plant grasses
or add other plants to the mix that will tolerate
existing conditions. leave the amendments and
compost for the garden beds that you want to alter
to fit specific crops (much smaller areas, less
expensive, etc.).

This is an option but if liming is suitable in the situation it is not
difficult nor particularly expensive.

also true, but i'm not a big fan of encouraging
lawns to grow even more so they need to be mowed
more often, etc.


songbird

In article ,
songbird wrote:

calciferous fragment? ;o)

Worms can cycle the calcium in an environment, but they can't add to it
by their presence. You need a source like dead (preferably;O) animals,
limestone, or egg shells.

I think worms are big into leaves, forest litter, and mulch.




The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (Jul 10, 2007)

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-...1C2E0QK/ref=sr
_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300338811&sr=1-1

You'll like it.
--
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYIC0eZYEtI
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/3/7/michael_moore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZkDikRLQrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw

On Mar 16, 6:43*pm, songbird wrote:


**worms do secrete calcium.

The worms will just recycle the calcium already in the environment so this
would have no net effect.


* if a worm ingests a calciferous fragment
they will grind it in their gizzard along
with everything else they ingest. *add to
that secreted calcium. *i think all of
these things would increase available
calcium in the soil (which is what is more
important to plants than calcium levels
tied up in forms that aren't very
accessible).


Songbird, below info may help clarify:

http://cronodon.com/BioTech/Earthworm_nutrition.html

“It was originally thought that the calciferous glands excrete excess
calcium, since earthworms living in calcareous
soils ingest huge amounts of calcium carbonate (limestone/chalk) -
sometimes too much to digest and absorb and
so it is presumed that they must rid themselves of excess calcium.
However, whether or not an earthworm lives in
calcium-rich soil does not seem to correlate with calciferous gland
function. The glands have been shown to
contain large amounts of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which fixes
carbon dioxide gas by reacting it with
calcium to produce calcium carbonate. Carbon dioxide is generated by
respiration within the earthworm and must
be excreted since it is acidic. Experimental removal of the
calciferous glands has been shown to result in
increased acidity (lowering of pH) in the earthworm's coelomic fluid.
This suggests that these glands have an
important role in acidity (pH) regulation. All organisms function best
within a certain pH range and the body must
be maintained within this (often very narrow) range. The calcium
carbonate excreted by these glands may be so
abundant as to form crystals or concretions that pass out with the
worm's faeces (or casts). Perhaps in winter
these glands are not required as much, since the respiration rates of
earthworms may drop with a fall in
temperature. Calcium excretion may also help to neutralise the humic
acids in the ingested soil.”

Billy wrote:
songbird wrote:

calciferous fragment? ;o)

the short way of saying any mineral
particle that contains calcium (in
some form).


Worms can cycle the calcium in an environment, but they can't add to it
by their presence. You need a source like dead (preferably;O) animals,
limestone, or egg shells.

those last two, i.e. calciferous
fragments.

they may not add it, but i think
they do make what is there more
accessible.


I think worms are big into leaves, forest litter, and mulch.

especially the forest litter... but they do ingest
fragments of rocks for their gizzards to grind stuff
with. and if those fragments have calcium in them in
some form the grinding will make that calcium more
accessible to plants than it was previously.

some time when i am rich and famous i'll run a study
in my lab and see what actually is going on.

note that some worm species do not dwell in leaf
litter, instead they feed more in the subsoil and
around plant roots. you don't find them on or
near the surface unless they have been flooded.


The World Without Us by Alan Weisman (Jul 10, 2007)

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-...1C2E0QK/ref=sr
_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300338811&sr=1-1

You'll like it.

i think i've read that one, but don't recall
specifics at the moment.


songbird

Gunner wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â*Â*worms do secrete calcium.

The worms will just recycle the calcium already in the environment so this
would have no net effect.


Â* if a worm ingests a calciferous fragment
they will grind it in their gizzard along
with everything else they ingest. Â*add to
that secreted calcium. Â*i think all of
these things would increase available
calcium in the soil (which is what is more
important to plants than calcium levels
tied up in forms that aren't very
accessible).

Songbird, below info may help clarify:

http://cronodon.com/BioTech/Earthworm_nutrition.html

“It was originally thought that the calciferous glands excrete excess
calcium, since earthworms living in calcareous
soils ingest huge amounts of calcium carbonate (limestone/chalk) -
sometimes too much to digest and absorb and
so it is presumed that they must rid themselves of excess calcium.
However, whether or not an earthworm lives in
calcium-rich soil does not seem to correlate with calciferous gland
function. The glands have been shown to
contain large amounts of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase, which fixes
carbon dioxide gas by reacting it with
calcium to produce calcium carbonate. Carbon dioxide is generated by
respiration within the earthworm and must
be excreted since it is acidic. Experimental removal of the
calciferous glands has been shown to result in
increased acidity (lowering of pH) in the earthworm's coelomic fluid.
This suggests that these glands have an
important role in acidity (pH) regulation. All organisms function best
within a certain pH range and the body must
be maintained within this (often very narrow) range. The calcium
carbonate excreted by these glands may be so
abundant as to form crystals or concretions that pass out with the
worm's faeces (or casts). Perhaps in winter
these glands are not required as much, since the respiration rates of
earthworms may drop with a fall in
temperature. Calcium excretion may also help to neutralise the humic
acids in the ingested soil.�

interesting, thanks for posting. it
contains some speculation, but at least it
does point to an actual experiment that was
carried out and an actual result.

my searching last night did not find
anything that was worth a mention here.


songbird

On Mar 17, 8:33*pm, songbird wrote:
Gunner wrote:

* my searching last night did not find
anything that was worth a mention here.

* songbird- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

You might try searching Google Scholar with key words like; Casting
activity - Earthworm number - Mineral fertilizer - Organic manure - pH
- Earthworm biomass - fertilizer materials & earthworm activity,
worm & calcium in soil, etc.

here is one such experiment I read yesterday when I went to see what
is out the

http://tinyurl.com/4hq7kw2
or
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...sea rchtype=a

Gunner wrote:
songbird wrote:
Gunner wrote:

Â* my searching last night did not find
anything that was worth a mention here.

You might try searching Google Scholar with key words like; Casting
activity - Earthworm number - Mineral fertilizer - Organic manure - pH
- Earthworm biomass - fertilizer materials & earthworm activity,
worm & calcium in soil, etc.

"worms and soil calcium levels" worked ok, but
my connection is slow, so it takes a long time to
bring up most sites.


here is one such experiment I read yesterday when I went to see what
is out the

thanks, i'll have to check that out later
when i get back on-line.

the few places i was able to actually read
articles said that the worm castings were
between 1.5 and 3 times the calcium levels of
the surrounding soil. so that's a pointer in
the right direction.


songbird

Someone assed:
how to make soil amendments without digging up the yard?

Why would any normal brained person want to... if it's not going to
dug up for planting just leave it lie fallow... why would you put
mustard on a hot dog if you're not going to eat it?