I have read on the internet you can put whole eggs, fish and shrimp in your compost or bury in your soil. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
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I have read on the internet you can put whole eggs, fish and shrimp in your compost or bury in your soil. Does anyone have any thoughts about this?
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Thanks All,
I always have extra old eggs and wanted to take the easy way out. I think I might burying some fish. I bought some worms at Walmart and they seem to be muliplying. In Canada they use human manure and it smells terrible. I know someone who uses cat manure in the compost, but I will not be trying that one.
Grace, I would just crush the eggs and bury them as you are thinking about doing with the fish.
The whole issue of humanure or cat/dog manure is about those folks choosing to go a full circuit of sustainability. Why send the "stuff" to the land fill or waster recycling center if one has the property to properly re-introduce it back into the land.
In support of Catherine's points, the eggs are pretty easy in the compost. Break them in and stir the compost - often. The more you stir the compost, the faster it works and breaks down things. Pretty much anything. The big issue is having stuff sit in the compost that will attract critters and pests. Bury it. The smaller the material the better, the more you stir the better. And mind the concentration of 'bad' stuff. (Even good stuff in concentration will sour your compost.) Cook it longer if you have concerns.
When in doubt, leave it out. Otherwise, trust that the earth and the process of nature will manage things.
Good luck with it Grace!
Burying organic items in the soil usually relies on earthworms for decomposition rather than bacteria, mold and fungus. Unfortunately, here the Sonoran desert, earthworms are pretty scarce.
That said, if you can good bed of vermiculture going, it is an excellent basis for an productive organic garden.
Grace, the challenge is that "whole" anything will take a very long time to break down in a compost pile compared to the regular vegetable and carbon matter in the pile. As Linda notes whole things can be buried in the soil to decay at the site - I don't think I would do whole eggs, though I would break them up and bury them. The composting suggestions are for the 'debris' of shrimp and eggs, i.e. shells and such. One of the recommendations is a fish head in a tomato planting hole.
If you really want to try composting whole things look into the recommendations for humanure (composting human and animal waste), and it will give you some guidelines on how to do it safely and properly and how LONG you need to let it rot. Hope that helps.
sounds like scarey stuff with pathogens etc (composting human waste) .
Absolutely, Linda. The bacteria is a big issue with going the humanure method. The principles apply to whole fish because of the time it takes to break down if Grace wanted to do a "protein" type compost system.
The fact is the extreme composting can be done, just most residential properties do not have the right size or conditions to do it properly, nor would most people want to have to wait as long as it is necessary to make it happen correctly.
I have read a definite NO to adding those to compost... but buried fish in soil sounds vaguely familiar ( what is fish emulsion and Fish Gem ( Singh farm) from?