The wonderful useful Clam shell

This is my first post on this site or any forums site in a long time, i enjoy this website.

Anyway during a foraging trip near a local river with my little brother we ended up walking along the riverbank observing how low it was and noticing the hundreds of clam and muscle shells scattered about when it occurred to me that their shells are made up mostly of calcium and they little ones are very easy to crush into a dust So we gathered a grocery bag full and took them home, washed them and crushed them. ever since i have been using this power as a substitute for vermiculite and perlite in all applications, it would also be a good mineral supplement for gardens. I am soon to build an aquaponic setup and instead of using clay pellets i plan on gathering alot of these shells and crushing them down to a gravel, since calcium is a major missing nutrient in most aquaponic setups.

These shells could be used for so many different things the possibilities are truly endless, and harvesting them is as simple as going to your local river and walking the banks. Does anyone else here have experience with using shells for anything besides decoration? Anyone out there have any other clever uses of them?

Clam or oyster shells make a fine covering for a driveway if you have access to enough. They will get crushed to a fine powder that you can harvest for other uses and will form a kind of cement to protect the drive. I've seen this a lot nearer the coast.

We go clamming every year. We crush the shells and put them under fruit trees. Fruit trees need lots of calcium and some other minerals. They release slowly but can prevent blossom end rot and other problems.
John S
PDX OR

I smash them to bit between a couple of concrete blocks and throw then in my chicken's area. They love to pick through the pieces and I often find them in their gizzards when I slaughter.