How to Use Egg Shells in Your Garden

In this article you will see how to use egg shells as fertilizer, mini greenhouses, and weed control in your garden. This article will stop your egg shells from being wasted and thrown away into the trash.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Egg shells (collect them in a margarine tub)
• Egg cartons (both paper and Styrofoam)
• Planters (assorted sizes and shapes)
• Soil
• Small nail or
• Newspaper
• Spoon
• Scissors
• Assorted seeds

1. 
   Using small nail/stick pin showing how to make drainage holes in egg shell

   First of all, collect egg shells for maybe two weeks (less if your family goes through eggs like mine does). Try to break the eggs at the top so you still have at least half an egg shell to use for this project. I also rinsed any remnants of egg out of the egg shell. (this will help so you don't get any funky smell from your eggs as you store the shells)

2. 
   Tomatoe seeds after about 2 weeks in egg shell greenhouses

   Gather all your supplies either outside on a table or in your home. Spread the newspaper down and put your soil on the newspaper. Using a small nail or stick pin, poke one sort of large or 4 small drainage holes in the egg shell. see the picture above *This step is important because if you didn't do this, your egg shell greenhouse would become a pond and drown your seed.
   
   Using a spoon, fill each of your egg shell cups with soil. Add a seed or two into the egg shells and use the end of the spoon to tap the seed below the soil.
   
   Store your egg shell greenhouses in their original Styrofoam egg carton just modify it by cutting the top off to use it as a drainage tray. You should also cut crisscrosses in the bottom of each egg cup so water can drain away from the egg shells.
   
   You'll want to gently crush the bottoms of your eggshell greenhouses before you transplant them outside to a bigger planter or directly in to the ground.

3. 
   Egg shell mulch

   Another way to use egg shells in your garden is as mulch around your existing plants. Gather the tops of the egg shells and any broken egg shells not used for the other project, put them in a Ziploc bag and crush the egg shells with a can or the bottom of a frying pan. Spread the crushed egg shells around your plants in the garden to keep the weeds down and to supply a source of calcium for your plants.

4. 
   top planter shows the egg shell carton stage, than add your egg shells, than final layer of soil and seeds

   Here is a third project using the paper egg shell holder. Instead of buying the fancy moisture retaining pellets, you can cut up the paper egg carton and have it act as a sponge to hold water for your plants. Put a layer of soil down first than a layer of paper egg carton followed by another layer of soil. Next add a layer of egg shells for their nutrients and top with a final layer of soil. Add seeds, water, and wait about 2 weeks for your plants to sprout up.

Tips & Warnings

• Start your egg shell greenhouses in the house until your seeds have sprouted. Learn from my mistake I thought I'd drowned the seeds when I had really torrential rains couple weeks ago.
• Use Styrofoam egg cartons only for holding the egg shell greenhouses.
• Once the egg water from boiling eggs has cooled down use it to water your household plants and garden plants.
• Rinse your egg shells out and let them dry before putting them into clean margarine container. This will make sure you don't have any funky odors in your kitchen.
• DON'T Use the paper egg cartons to hold your egg shell greenhouses. It will get soaked and not hold together when you water your egg shell greenhouses. Also it will get a weird looking whitish mold on the outside of the paper egg cartons.

Resources

• eHow Home and Garden Topic Guide
• She told me :-)

[4dogday]

on 6/6/2009 Great tips and ideas on using egg shells in the garden!

[starlet67]

on 6/5/2009 Great tips and great pics for using egg shells in your garden! Helpful info!5*

[thebeaddoodler]

on 5/30/2009 Great article on how to use egg shells in your garden. One tip for those in areas where the soil/water is very alkaline: be aware that paper is alkaline and add extra manure or other acid materials.