Growing vegetables requires that your soil contain calcium.
Some gardeners put eggshells in their vegetable gardens because the micronutrient calcium is essential to healthy plant growth -- and eggshells contain calcium. Signs of calcium deficiency in plants include yellowing, curling leaves, stunted growth, increased problems with fungi and shoots that rot and turn black. Calcium in the soil is rapidly depleted by plants, so it needs to be supplemented often. There are several options including calcium carbonate tablets sold for human consumption, to repair calcium deficiencies in your garden soil and prevent the deficiency from happening in the first place.
Testing the Soil
If you suspect your garden soil is low in calcium, have it tested using a percent Base Saturation values. If your percent Ca is lower than 40, you should add calcium in some form -- such as calcium tablets, eggshells or agricultural lime. If you cannot get a soil test that provides the information you need, ask your county agent or a local agricultural extension service to see if the soil in your area is generally lacking in calcium. If you cannot get any information on calcium in your soil, do your own test. Plant two groups of peppers or tomatoes in your garden. Add calcium to one group, leave the other supplement-free. See if you can tell the difference when the plants mature.
Calcium Tablets
Of the many varieties of calcium tablets available for human use, the most effective to use in your garden is calcium carbonate. Crushing the tablets and adding them to your garden soil will have the same effect as adding agricultural lime. However, calcium tablets are expensive, and trying to raise the calcium level in your soil by this method might be demanding on your budget. Use calcium tablets if you have them left over in your medicine cabinet -- but choose some other method of adding calcium to perform routine maintenance.
Other Sources of Calcium for the Garden
Crushed eggshells are an inexpensive solution to the calcium problem in your garden. Scatter the eggshells on top of your garden and work them into the soil. Spreading lime over your garden is a good way to raise the pH of the soil and to add calcium. Quicklime, or calcium oxide, is one available source of lime. It acts fast, but you run the risk of damaging plants if you overuse it. A safer source of lime is ground limestone, or agricultural lime. This works more slowly, but is less likely to damage plants. Gypsum-calcium sulfate adds calcium to the soil without raising the pH level. If your soil has high pH and low calcium, this is a good choice. Wood ash is 45 percent calcium carbonate. If you have a wood stove, working wood ash into your garden soil is a very inexpensive way to improve it.
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