(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

The chopper is used to break down what material I want to compost. It does not take long to do. You can go as fine as you want. For kitchen material I even have use a large food processor. Good to grind egg shells. Once chopped up It is put in a Bokashi Bucket, in a large container or pile where I force air into it by a blower and a system of pipes. Once the compost is done I place it in a four wheel cart that has a bottom of expanded metal. I have a 12 volt DC vibrator attached to the cart that is used to shake the compost on the top of the expanded metal. Various sizes of the expanded metal can be used. Along with the shaking take a flat rake and push the compost back and forth. (GOOD JOB FOR YOUR SONS OR GRANDSONS) For yard waste I used an electric chipper shredder and grind the material as fine as possible. Also use the forced air system in the pile. Once done it is easy to sift. Always use the SECRET INGREDIENTS TO ENHANCE the Garden Gold.

Hi Marlene, That's funny the time that answers continue. I'm relatively certain that I can't damage the soil with too many coffee grounds around the acid-loving plants in my alkaline soil. My Minnesota blue hydrangea bloomed pink for the second year just as the neighbor said it would and while I don't care to kill it, this spring I ignored the delicate measured administration of cotton seed meal, and dug into the drip-line soil all the rest of the bag, resulting in a darker pink. Not to be put off, I plunged one of the blooms into blue colored water and watched it turn neon on the kitchen table. If I can avoid it, I try not to buy things to amend my soil, so your question reminds me that either Caribou Coffee or Starbucks bundle coffee grounds to give away. Since I'm in a metropolitan area, I believe I will pick up quantities at next opportunity and see if the hydrangea wants to play tough again. Thanks to you, today I have emptied the breakfast coffee grinder around the base of my red rose (the cold-surviving Margaret Chase Smith variety), carefully distributed it to prevent hydrophobia, and crushed the nuked(1 minute) lunch-salad egg shells to strew among the lettuce vs. slugs. Not fond of slugs. Thanks for your question. Here is a link that might be useful: Master Coach

I have an interest in info on tomatoes to, but I would love to keep this thread to worms and egg shells, I could not find a way to rout tomato posts to a new thread. Harry, I have been considering a similar set up. For my own information; did you do strait up or at an angle? did you do 1 row or 2 (2 like a tent shape) how far apart did you put your containers What did the roots look like in your pot at the end of the season (heavy root lock? amount of the total volume that was root? etc) Diagnosis questions: Do you plan on reusing the same soil next year? Do you know the ph of your soil and your water sources? Is egg shell the only Calcium you plan on adding? Did you notice any patterens with the BER, such as plant, type of plant, height of fruit with BER, or time of growth season of the BER?