5 reasons not to throw away your eggshells
You’ve probably heard that eggshells are good for plants. I mean, even I had heard that, and I’m the person who can make fake flowers wilt. But I do eat a lot of eggs – and you can actually do a lot with those eggshells!
So even if you don’t have green fingers, you can still learn something from these tips. We won’t go so far as to say you should grind them up and blend them into your smoothie (people do it!) but the fact remains that these things are a source of goodness.
Do this with your eggshells instead of throwing them away
Slug-proof
Slugs love plants, and people who garden, in turn, don’t exactly love slugs. It sounds mean, but if you sprinkle coarsely crushed eggshells around your plants, slugs will think twice before sliming their bare bellies over those sharp edges.
Egg-cellent seedlings
If you want to germinate seeds, a good and plastic-free way to do it is in half eggshells. Use a pin to prick a hole in the bottom of the shell, carefully add some soil and push the seed in a little. Keep the shells in their egg carton; that way, they’ll stay nicely upright.
Shoo! Shoo!
Apparently, eggshells can keep not only slugs but also cats out of your garden when they mistake your patch of green for a litter box. Those soft, furry cushions under their paws? Apparently, they’re not so resistant to sharp edges either.
Chicken cannibal
It may sound a little cannibalistic in a twisted kind of way, but laying hens also like to eat eggshells mixed into their feed. The calcium they contain helps them produce new eggs.
Happy tomatoes, happy you
Not just tomatoes, either: eggplant and pepper plants also seem to benefit from having some crushed eggshells around them. These plants are susceptible to blossom-end rot, a plant disease caused by an imbalance in the calcium levels in the soil. Eggshells, with their high calcium content, can help restore that balance.
That’s reason enough not to immediately throw away the eggshells the next time you serve yourself or others the fluffiest omelet or scrambled eggs!
Also read:
- The vegetable garden: not for the faint of heart
- Never a dead herb plant again
- This Instagram account takes ‘tying the cat to the bacon’ very literally
