Making the most of egg shells.
Many people throw out egg shells without knowing how useful they can actually be. I know that I was guilty of this up until last year, but now that I know how beneficial these eggs shells are to my garden, I will never waste one again!
Firstly, you can feed them back to your chickens. The shells are full of calcium and the chickens will benefit from this. Just be sure to completely crush up the egg and throw it in with their food (if they aren't crushed up the chickens will get into the habit of eating them and you will lose all of your delicious eggs!).
Deter soft bodied pests from your garden by hand crushing egg shells and sprinkling them around the effected plants. The egg shells are sharp and the pests can not crawl over them.
Crush the egg shells with a mortar and pestle. Sprinkle the egg shell dust onto your plants and water it into the soil. This will give your plants a calcium boost.
Start seedlings in egg shells. By removing the membrane, placing a pin hole in the bottom of the shell and filling it with soil, you have the perfect seedling starter. The best part about it is that you can then simply plant the egg with the seedling in it directly into the veggie patch!
Throw them into your compost. Whether you have a compost bin/tumbler, or a worm farm, your compost will benefit from the calcium boost that the eggs will provide.
As you can see from the five points above, by saving your egg shells you are not only creating a calcium rich environment for your garden, but you are also reducing your waste and lowering your reliance on calcium boosters.
