We are so excited to share that The Bergs and the Bees now accepts SNAP/EBT! 

We believe that good food should be accessible. Your SNAP/EBT benefits can be used on fresh eggs, produce, honey, and even seedlings to grow your own food at home! To make purchases with your benefits, please reach out directly to coordinate as we cannot conduct those sales online.

If you use SNAP, you’re welcome here! Please feel free to contact us with any questions, we are happy to help!

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What comes first? The chicken or the egg?
It is an age old question, but for us at The Bergs and the Bees, the answer is simple; the chicken!
Everyone loves our eggs, and they are a tremendous benefit; but they are not the reason we keep chickens.
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Our hens play a vital role in building our compost bank, which is the foundation for everything we grow. Chickens are incredible composting assists. Kitchen scraps, yard waste, animal bedding , garden waste, and other natural byproducts never go to waste on our farm, they go to our hens! When piled near the coop, our chickens eagerly break down these materials and eventually turn what would have been heavy landfill discarded into nutrient rich compost. We use this to replace the nutrients our crops take out of our raised beds, fields and orchards. It is a beautiful, closed loop system where nothing is wasted and everyone benefits.

At first you might be wondering "why on earth would you recycle your eggshells?".  We are here to tell you, there are so many reasons! Our main reason is that we love composting, and adding eggshells to your compost is a great way to incorporate calcium back into your soil. Anytime a plant grows in soil it absorbs the different nutrients it needs (such as calcium) through its roots! For a gardener, it is beneficial to amend your soil in between plantings to reintroduce nutrients the plants need to thrive. 

Much like how humans need calcium to grow strong bones, plants use calcium to help build strong cell walls! Lucky for us, eggshells are almost entirely made out of calcium. That means free fertilizer! Instead of discarding our eggshells, it is just as easy to give them a rinse, dry them out, and give their life another purpose. 

Instructions:

1. Rinse your eggshells underwater, don't worry about removing the membrane.
2. Place your shells in a place where they can dry out for a day or two. We like to put them in our windowsill behind our sink. This allows for them to dry out without being scooted off of the counter by our cats!
3. Once they are dry, the shells will crumble easily. Simply crush them up with your hands or in a blender. The size of the crushed eggshells is completely up to you, smaller eggshells distribute more evenly in soil.
4. Add to your compost or sprinkle around your plants! And there you have it, you were able to provide your plants and soil with the calcium it needs with something that would have otherwise been discarded!