Using Eggshells in the Garden
by
Survival At Home
(IC: blogger)
Eggs are pretty commonplace in just about everyone’s kitchen. You use them for baking, as binders in casseroles, and as a staple breakfast item. You can eat eggs fried, scrambled, as omelettes, boiled, poached… I think you get the picture. So what do you do with all those eggshells? Some people just throw them into the compost pile – which is perfectly fine. Other people throw them away. If you throw your eggshells away, I urge you to stop! Especially if you grow your own veggies. You can use those eggshells in the garden and bypass the trash and the compost pile.
Eggs are pretty commonplace in just about everyone’s kitchen. You use them for baking, as binders in casseroles, and as a staple breakfast item. You can eat eggs fried, scrambled, as omelettes, boiled, poached… I think you get the picture. So what do you do with all those eggshells? Some people just throw them into the compost pile – which is perfectly fine. Other people throw them away. If you throw your eggshells away, I urge you to stop! Especially if you grow your own veggies. You can use those eggshells in the garden and bypass the trash and the compost pile.
I like to rinse the shells and then dry them in the oven... but I don’t want to waste power just on the eggshells. So I wait until I’ve used the oven, then when I turn it off, I pop the eggshells onto a pan and put them in the oven as it cools. The residual heat helps sterilize and dry the eggshells completely. You could also put them into the oven as you’re preheating it to cook something. Any way it goes, you’re not using excess power to run the oven just for the purpose of drying and sterilizing eggshells.
Once the shells are completely dry, I’ll put them into a container to accumulate. Once I have about a dozen or so, it’s time to pulverize them! You can use a variety of tools to do this job – I personally use a mini chopper (because that’s what I have readily available). A dozen eggshells makes about 1/3 cup pulverized, depending on how fine you crush them. With my mini chopper, they don’t completely reduce to powder – it’s mostly just small shards of shell and a little powder.
Learn more about using eggshells in the garden, why you should do it, and how to get started at http://survivalathome.com/using-eggshells-in-the-garden/
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Published June 6th, 2014 12:00 PM
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Ann Amanda Brouillard on Sep 20, 2016I put the shells in my tomato plants but the bluejays flock in and take them. I have even seen them eat them. Very strange
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