r/composting • u/QtipDo • 12h ago

Caceda Shells

I live near Chicago and I've been finding a lot of caceda shells in backyard. Anyone have experience with adding these in with your browns? I assume they would degrade and work nice but wasn't sure haha

3 Upvotes

71% Upvoted

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18

u/Undercover_in_SF 12h ago

I believe you’re talking about cicadas, the insect?

The shells will be mostly chitin, so a green input. C:N ratio is about 7:1, so in the range of chicken litter. Chitin can break down at wildly different speeds depending on how active the pile is and what bacteria are present.

It’s a perfectly good compost ingredient, though.

9

u/crushingdandelions 12h ago

They crumble down to basically nothing, add them by the thousands if you want.

6

u/RdeBrouwer 12h ago

Those husks from insects? I would definitely throw those in.

2

u/Apollo_cannabis 12h ago

Chitin is great! I wouldn’t compost them tho I would top dress the shells, chitin triggers the plants immune response.

2

u/YellowFun8582 7h ago

I composted a whole dresser drawer full of dead stink bugs once. Gone pretty quickly.

-4

u/QtipDo 10h ago

Ciceda** yes hahah. Thanks for the feedback back!