Do you have to burn the bones?

Hi there, I'm new here.

We have a lot of bones saved up - I've been making beef broth with shanks, knuckle bones and marrow bones every week for about 3 years. I've been hearing that you can burn bones and grind them up to make bone meal, but I'm wondering if you really have to. We don't have space for a big enough fire! Couldn't you bury them? If you did, what would be the best spot? Underneath the wood in a hugel? On top of it? Under specific plants? How deep?

Also, I have a lot of used deep-fryer tallow and bacon fat. What do you recommend doing with that? Can it be used for biodiesel or is it too sludgy? Can it be buried? I've used it in firestarters but it stinks pretty bad, and I don't need much of it for that.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Howdy Mike welcome to Permies! I will be looking forward to hearing the answer to your question about bones also. Might want to post about the fat for biodiesel in the other forum about that.

The buried bones wouldn't be as accessible as bone meal, but I'd bury them in a hugelbeet, why not? My understanding of soil science says that soil life, especially fungus, has the ability to move nutrients around underground. Biodynamics has suggestions for burying cow horns in garden beds, and I have buried deer antlers because I have them and they are similar.

Thanks! That's very helpful.

Bones, by themselves, will break down over time but there are a lot of factors that influence HOW LONG it takes. Larger bones tend to persist for a while.

I make stock with whatever I have and I have a few observations.

Poultry bones break down readily, larger birds bone might need to go through my compost system twice to be harder to recognize. Thick beef bones tend to persist. I've taken to putting them in my compost but after a 'cycle' I tend to bury them and call it a day.

I've had the same 'problem'. I make bone jelly for my dogs so have a steady supply of large bone bits. I've been saving them up. This year for the first time I feel I have done the right thing for me. As my soil is very acidic I'm hoping that adding bones will add Calcium to help remediate the pH. I don't want to be digging them up all the time though, so buried them deep below my potatoes when I planted them.



As they are bigger they will be slow to break down, so any soil improvement will be gradual. For a quicker release of nutrients then crushing them would probably help.

If you burn bones you don't really have to grind them afterwards because they'll just kind of crumble apart afterward.  Burned bones are a great source of phosphorus.  If your soil is low in phosphorus it's possible you'll see a very noticeable difference pretty much immediately.