Oyster Shell for Orchids

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by Maryanne

Hi Folks:
I couldn't resist adding a couple of anecdotes...of course, 'your mileage may vary' ; -)
My grandparents and parents used to raise a couple thousand chickens at a time on our tiny New England farm. Crushed Oyster shells were provided regularly to the egg layers. A chicken's digestive system is highly 'corrosive' and they easily extract the calcium...now I just make a batch of mussels for dinner and turn the shells over to my tiny flock. They love them. But oyster shells aren't going to dissolve very quickly in ordinary tap water.
I visited my cousins in Lithuania a few years back, and we visited a region where the land was underlain by "karst" or limestone. It dissolves in rain water and leads to "cowholes" in local pastures...your cow is heavy enough to step on a piece of ground made hollow by the dissolving karst, and oops, cow-hole. But why do I mention this? because when we made our way around that little town, the phals in the windows of the cottages were show-quality and dripping with blooms. They were being watered by the water from wells drilled in karst which had been dissolving for years. Bingo, calcium. Florida Limestone is probably doing the same.

Now, I live on gravel/granite so I started to use my eggshells from baking. Bake the cake, bake the empty shells at the same time in another pan, then powder the shells in a coffee grinder. I add the pulverized shells to Paph media and low and behold a fussy P. insigne finally put out 3 rather than one measly flower. So, I've continued with this ritual on various other plants. (no Phals, I don't keep them) None seem to have come to any harm, and most have produced a bit better. Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems to have done something and it costs nothing. (I'll spare you my use of chicken manure tactics, which I think I posted a few years ago). hahaha
Happy growing and experimenting
Maryanne

this is great! i was just gonna suggest something similar when sade asked what to do with all her shells. but i was gonna go more the approach of pulverize it with a nice mortar and pestle, then research ways to make it palatable to her orchids in some sort of solution. just speculating, but yeah, there’s gotta be some creative things she can do! great story! i mentioned how my grandma always fertilized with sugar water, but i left out how she would periodically spread the spent coffee ground onto her houseplants and her tomato garden.

[WaterWitchin]

Wise words Kim. I always pay attention to your thoughts.

[SADE2020]

I totally agreed that what matters are the nature basics. It was just an example of a nursery that care for limestone... ;-) ..and yes, where they are they can probably grow whatever except succulents

[Onomaya]

So I called the nursery in question today (for other reasons initially) and also asked about the oyster shells.

They use it as a slow release source of Calcium, not against algae as I originally thought (they use pebbles for that on plants that are in spaghnum).

The reason behind it is apparently that acid residue in air/water can still interact with the shells and dissolve them into Ca-sources the plants can consume.

Hope this helps.

[estación seca]

Egg shells have a large amount of protein along with the calcium. Adding them to potting medium provides nitrogen.