(Leslie here... addicted as always) Wonderpets... I found a link on the 'Bed Bath and Beyond' website to a mortar and pestle set that's identical to the one I use. It's made of marble, and costs only 13 bucks. Here's the URL to that link... http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=10177863 BUT...they have another set, made of granite, which I think would work even better for eggshells.(Wider diameter, made of bulkier material, more spendy though) See... http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?order_num=-1&SKU=16041807 (I really like that one) Whatever you do, make sure you get one that is hefty and has some serious weight to it. As thin as eggshells appear to be, it takes a surprising amount of force to beat them into actual dust after grinding them into tiny bits. Trust me, you want the heaviest and most durable material you can find. Natural stone works perfectly for this. I can give you more tips on the fine art of pulverizing eggshells if you want. I squish them up in my hands first. Toss a few in the bowl, (don't fill it too full because you want them to be somewhat vulnerable to the hardness of the stone. Too many acts almost like a mattress) and start by grinding them into small bits. (This is like a rolling motion; you're just rubbing the surface of one stone against another stone, with egg shells in between.) Once I get them into smaller pieces, I continually shake the bowl back and forth horizontally across the counter; this brings the larger pieces up to the surface; the dusty stuff stays towards the bottom, acts as a buffer, (mattress) and allows you REALLY smack the bigger chunks HARD, without having to worry about striking stone against bare stone. Eggshells have no choice but to disintegrate upon sharp impact like this. (Yes, at this point, I basically hit them as I would with a hammer... so the 'mattress layer' protects the stone from any damage.) I probably wouldn't try this with ceramic material, definitely not glass... and I'm afraid metal might actually dent up from repetitive abuse of this nature. The marble one I use tolerates these beatings beautifully, with no ill effects whatsoever. I only wish the bowl was a little bigger, and also... fatter, heavier stone would just speed the process, and require less effort from whomever is doing the actual pulverizing. Oh and Laura... you have me pegged. I'm up to my ears in 'experiments' around here. Of those eight piles, I've managed to keep 4 in the 125-150 degree range for almost two weeks now. They are melting amazingly fast... My plan is to 'process' the contents of four cold piles through the hot piles as they go down; adding greens, and minding my ratios as I go. AND no bad smells or anything! Truly, I having a blast with this forum and all my compost-related adventures!!! I've just finished sculpting a decent sized hole in the ground to use as a fire pit... because I feel convinced I can fill this hole with sand, line it with rocks, and and use it to make some version of 'bio-char'. I have buckets of experimental 'bug juice' brewing... molasses tea. I've been prowling around the national forest too, in search of indigenous bacteria. (People dump huge piles of yard wast out there too, which I've been more than happy to scoop up while I'm there.) I built a very cool sifting table, which so far... I've been using to sift old, partially decomposed wood/bark mulch, but soon will use it to sift compost also. I've got one empty wire cage left, before I would need to cut into a new roll to make more. I've sworn to my boyfriend that I wouldn't keep more than these 9 bins going at once... but... you know how that goes. Found a source for free Alpaca poo yesterday... might be worth cutting into that new roll after all. :) Leslie in CO

Keep in mind that when vinegar is used as a herbicide, the contentration is fairly high, and you're supposed to use it when the sun is out. Many things that are fine or even good for plants are toxic at high conentrations. I've given a fair amount of vinegar to shaded weeds, and they were fine (they didn't even flinch). I imagine a little calcium acetate on the plant isn't going to hurt it. Fertilizer foliar sprays generally aren't done when the sun is out, and the concentration is very low. So, you're unlikely to kill the plant, unless you use the wrong ratio of fertilizer to water and/or apply it in the sun.

we add egg shells regularly. It is especially good to give a good sprinkle of them to a freshly set up bin with bran new bedding. It gives them the grit to help break down their food. Anyway, we let the shells dry out and then use an old coffee grinder to powder them. A sprinkle in the worm food can before taking it out to the worm bin is good. I will sometimes keep a container of the powdered egg shells by the bin to sprinkle over the surface when I add new bedding. As many egg shells as you family can go though is probably quite safe and appropriate. If you have an outside sources for large amounts of egg shell, that could be too much and probably better spread around the garden or compost bin. Here is a link that might be useful: My Bins

You're welcome. I thought his blog was interesting too, and I never know if my eggshells really break down or if they just disappear from the compost pile because every wild thing on earth goes to my compost pile and eats what they want.....and I think some of those wild things are eating my eggshells. My compost pile ends up being a fast food joint for deer, rabbits, possums, etc. My soil and water both tested over 8.0 in pH when we moved here, but I had gardened in alkalkine soil in Texas, so a pH that high did not totally freak me out. Our water stays at 8.2 most of the time, occasionally 8.3. By adding extreme amounts of compost and other organic matter over the years, I can keep our soil right around 7.0 most of the time (I've also used sulfur to lower the pH) but if I get lazy and don't add compost regularly the soil can revert to a higher pH and things get pretty ugly pretty quickly. It is not easy to change soil pH, and I cannot imagine a person ever could do it with eggshells, unless they have especially acidic soil (or lots of acid rain). Obviously I have no hope of ever growing acid-loving plants like blueberries or azaleas because even if I had them in containers or raised beds filled 100% with a peat moss-pine bark blend, I'd still be watering them with highly alkaline water unless I also treated the irrigation water to make it more acidic. That's more than I'm willing to do as there are only so many hours a day, especially in the prime gardening season when so many chores await. So, I just focus on fixing the soil as much as I can and am grateful so many garden plants will indeed perform well enough in alkaline soil to keep me happy.