5 Ways to Use Eggshells in Your Garden

A normal person looks at an egg and thinks “omelet” or “frittata.” A gardener (especially one who tends to be on the obsessive end of the spectrum) looks at an egg and thinks “yes! Eggshells!”

Five Ways to Use Eggshells in Your Garden

1. Add crushed eggshells to the bottom of planting holes, especially for tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant. These crops are susceptible to blossom end rot, which is caused by calcium deficiency. While this deficiency is most often caused by improper watering, there’s no harm in making sure your plants have a steady source of calcium. As the eggshells break down, they’ll nourish the soil, and your plants.

2. Use eggshells as pots for starting plants from seed. Then plant the seedling, “pot” and all, into the garden.

3. Use crushed eggshells to deter slugs, snails, and cutworms. These garden pests are a real pain in the gardener’s neck, and cutworms are the worst, killing seedlings by severing the stems at soil level. All three of these pests have soft undersides, and dislike slithering across anything sharp. Crushed eggshells, applied to the soil’s surface, may help deter these pests.

4. Add them to the compost pile. If you aren’t planting tomatoes or trying to deter slugs, add the eggshells to your compost pile, where they’ll add calcium to your finished compost.

5. If you are feeding birds in your yard, crush up the eggshells and add them to a dish near the feeder. Female birds, particularly those who are getting ready to lay eggs or recently finished laying, require extra calcium and will definitely appreciate it!

No matter how you want to use them, be sure to rinse the shells out well before using them in the garden.

By Colleen Vanderlinden, Planet Green

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Jeff F.

1:52PM PDT on May 14, 2012

I use an old krups coffee grinder to grind them to a fine powder and mix with potting soil and compost tea....plants love it!

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Donna H.

5:39AM PDT on May 14, 2012

Thanks for the info.

Sue M.

5:54AM PDT on May 3, 2012

thanks

Karen F.

6:14PM PDT on Apr 23, 2012

They definitely work with detering snails and slugs - thanks for the tip for supplementing the diet of wild birds!

Loo S.

10:44PM PDT on Jul 15, 2011

thanks for sharing.

Alicia v.

5:03PM PDT on Jul 15, 2011

Thanks, we'll do.

Claire C.

9:31AM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

I also dry out my teabags and then open them and take the grounds out and put that in my garden for mulch as well. If you drink tea frequently as we do, it does add up. I figure if I was throwing them in the trash, they'll just end up in a landfill, which is pretty much a total waste then.

9:28AM PDT on Jul 13, 2011

I have a couple of tomato plants this year and we've had problems with slugs, so I found this article to be very helpful - thanks

Sarah H.

1:00PM PDT on Jul 10, 2011

We usually add the eggshells to our compost, but perhaps next year I'll crush some up for the seedlings when we plant the eggplants and peppers. I'll tell the fiancee about adding crushed eggshells to the bird feeding options, too. Thanks!

John S.

11:23AM PDT on May 22, 2011

Thanks, I only used the shells when planting tomatoes.