20 March 2016

Making Water-Soluble Calcium

Certain plant fertilizers are difficult to come by where I live, so I tried making water-soluble (and plant available) calcium following this guide — Natural Farming: Water-Soluble Calcium.

I think it turned out pretty good. Things to note;

  • I used white vinegar which was 10% acetic acid.
  • I added twice the volume of vinegar to crushed egg shells.
  • I agitated the solution daily for the first week.
  • I kept the paper towel on the glass the whole time.
  • I kept it going until all the vinegar had evaporated. This took about 3-4 weeks.

Water soluble calcium finished product.

The original guide I followed seems to collect liquid, where I collected crystals that form around the edges of the glass as the vinegar evaporated.

The result is Calcium acetate (I think).

I’ll dissolve about 1ml of the crystals to 1 liter of water, and apply as a foliar spray to my chilli plants and see if it helps with the fruit setting problems I’ve been having.

This has turned out to be a fun little science experiment.

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