Don’t throw those leftover eggshells away! Here are four easy and useful ways to use eggshells in your vegetable and flower garden.
If you don’t already do so, save your eggshells for your garden. Seriously though, eggshells are a wonderful garden resources that are super important for any backyard garden.
Not only are eggshells rich in calcium, there are plenty of other reasons you’ll want to incorporate them in your garden to maximize your growing potential.
We primarily use our eggshells in the garden – hence why we are sharing this post with you for these 4 garden uses. But you can also use them for a variety of other things. So don’t toss them — even if you aren’t growing a garden. Save them – they are so useful!
Why Keep Eggshells?
One of my favorite ways to garden is finding natural, useful ways to improve garden quality with things that are easy to incorporate. I love easy ideas that don’t take a mountain of time; especially things that can be incorporated easily with just a few simple steps.
Preparing Eggshells for Garden Use
No matter which avenue you choose to use eggshells in the garden, take a minute to rinse out the shells before you get started. Once rinsed out thoroughly, set them on a plate in the sun until they are thoroughly dried.
Once dried, you can crush… or pulverize in your blender to a fine powder. Both can be used for the garden – but each in its own unique situation.
4 Reasons to Use Eggshells in the Garden
#1: Pest Deterrent
Our favorite way to use eggshells is as a pest deterrent. We toss our clean eggshells in the blender and pulverize in a fine powder. We then sprinkle that on our garden and on the plants directly.
Eggshells won’t help prevent slugs or beetles (that’s a myth!) but it will prevent your plants from being eaten by bunnies.
I have these beautiful Lillies in my front yard that the rabbits LOVE to eat. Every spring when the lillies bloom I fear that the rabbits will feast. The egg shells sprinkled around them do wonders for preventing those cute furry fuzzballs from munching on the leaves. Rabbits dislike the smell of eggshells so they will avoid the area.
#2: Calcium Enricher
Using eggshells is a natural way to provide rich calcium to the soil of your plants, which in turn will help give the roots a boost.
If you do add eggshells to your garden, you will want to pulverize the shells into a fine powder. Adding crushed shells is possible – but they take years to decompose. If you add crushed (but not pulverized) shells, you will likely find them in your garden for years to come.
#3: In your Compost or Vermiculture Bin
One of the best ways to use eggshells is in your compost pile or vermiculture bin. They will add a lot of good nutrients to the soil and boost the calcium in your soil which is something your plants need.
Instead of adding them crushed, I like to pulverize them into a fine powder before sprinkling in the compost bin.
#4: Calcium Water
Instead of adding to the garden directly either crushed or pulverized, add your eggshells to garden water. Pulverize them in the blender or coffee grinder first, then stir them into a gallon or two of water. Mix it well and allow it to sit for a few days. Then use that water for your plants.
The plants will be the lucky recipients of this calcium rich water that’ll give them a quick boost.
Have you used eggshells in your garden?
There you go — 4 easy, wonderful ways to use your eggshells for your veggies and flowers. While you might be tempted to use them as a seed starting pot… don’t do it!
Eggshells take years (and YEARS!) to decompose. If you start your seeds in the shell, the roots will not have anywhere to go and you’ll end up having to transplant (which is what you were trying to avoid in the first place!) So save yourself the time, and rinse them out, dry them and pulverize them into powder.
