Eggshells are simple organic waste to most people, but there are many clever uses for eggshells around the house and garden if you think about it carefully.
Be it deterring pests or propagating vegetable growth, eggshells are definitely more than just waste.
In today’s article, we’ll be taking a look at the most popular and the most useful ways for you to use eggshells.
1. Deter Slugs
Slugs are one of the most annoying pests you can find in your garden. This is, unfortunately, something that most gardeners are very well aware of.
Luckily, slugs aren’t the most dexterous animals in the world, and it’s very easy to deter them from reaching and eating your veggies.
Crushing eggshells and making a circle around your greens is an effective strategy against snails and slugs, since their bodies are so soft.
Slugs and snails are mostly attracted to greens, such as cabbage and kale, so it’d be best to implement this strategy with those plants.
2. Fertilization
This is one of the most obvious eggshell uses for plants. Eggshells are mostly made from calcium carbonate and they’re a great addition to garden mulch, as they’ll release the calcium with time.
It’s important to crush your eggshells into tiny pieces and mix it in with other essential mulch ingredients. Eggshells bring balance to your mulch mix because they’re so potent with calcium.
Calcium is more important to your veggies than you might think, as it’s not uncommon for plants to develop a calcium imbalance. Covering the ground with mulch that has crushed eggshells incorporated can help this problem greatly.
3. Bird Feed
Whether you have a bird feeder in the backyard or you like throwing bread to pigeons, baked crushed eggshells are a great food for birds.
Just crush them and bake them on a baking tray until they’re completely dry, after which you can serve it any way you want.
They’re great for birds for the exact same reason they’re great for plants – calcium!
It goes without saying that if you have chickens, you can feed the eggshells back to your chickens.
4. Starting Seeds
It’s become a common practice to start seeds indoors and only take them out and replant them later on.
Now, you can start them in eggshells instead of using small plastic containers that are just damaging to the environment.
It’s as easy as filling the shell with soil and placing your seeds in them. After the plant has grown enough, you don’t even have to take it out of the shell.
Just take the shell and plant it in the garden – it will break down in the soil. It’s important to note that for this to work you have to have a large eggshell.
5. Cooking Uses
Even though it might seem odd to some – many people use eggshells in their cooking. You can cook them with your soups and even add them to your coffee.
There are probably hundreds of recipes that use eggshells, so we won’t be counting them down here. However, it’s important to know that humans can eat them too.
For example, adding them to coffee will make the drink a bit less bitter.
6. Cleaning
Eggshells are naturally abrasive, so they’re useful for cleaning sinks and drain pipes. However, some people report that they even clean their clothes and dishes.
Apparently, crushed eggshells can clean your thermos easily after it develops that nasty brown coffee stain at the bottom.
Others say that eggshells help keep your white clothes from going grey. These methods are certainly something worth trying out.
7. Dog Food Supplement
It’s crucial to point out that you need to crush the eggshells before adding them to food – it’d be best to grind them into a powder.
When it comes to eggshell uses for hair and eggshell uses for health, adding them as a supplement to your puppy’s meal can help them greatly.
During their earliest months, puppies are growing intensely and they need more calcium (and calories in general) in regard to their own weight than they need when they’re adults.
Eggshells are filled with calcium, which is great for both bone and coat health.
To End
It seems like nature has intended more than a single purpose for eggs, and we’d be crazy not to make the best out of it.
Whether you’re looking for additives to your garden mulch, a way to deter pests, or a new way to clean those hard-to-get stains – there are plenty of uses for eggshells around the house and garden.
So, don’t throw them away yet, and instead, find a better way of utilizing these natural containers.
