If you and your family eat a lot of eggs, stop before you toss those shells. Believe it or not, there are actually some great uses for eggshells.
1. Compost
Creating compost is one of the best uses for eggshells, if you’re an avid gardener. Eggshells are full of nutrients and calcium. Because of this, they make a great addition to the compost pile.
2. Plant Fertilizer
If you just aren’t patient enough to wait for rich compost, you can use eggshells directly on your soil as a natural (and cheap!) plant fertilizer. One of my favorite uses for eggshells is sprinkling them around the bases of my tomato plants in the summer. Not only does it help feed the plants, but it also helps prevent blossom end rot. You can also crush up eggshells and sprinkle them around the base of your houseplants.
3. Seed Starter Pots
One of the stranger uses for eggshells is as seed starter pots, and this does take a little practice. Carefully crack the tops off your eggs when you use them, then rinse the shells and let them dry. Carefully add seed starting mix and a seed when you’re ready to start a plant for your garden. Once the seedling is ready to be transplanted outside, carefully crush the shell a bit and plant the entire thing. The eggshells will also fertilize your plants as they grow.
4. Slug Control
There are tons of uses for eggshells in the garden, and here’s another one. If you have problems with slugs and snails in your garden, crush up some dried eggshells and sprinkle them around the base of your plants. The edges of the little pieces of the eggshells are sharp. Slugs and snails have very soft bodies, which can be cut by these pieces, so they tend to stay away for them.
5. Calcium Supplement
Over-the-counter calcium supplements are often very large, making them difficult to swallow. A powdered calcium supplement, on the other hand, is easier to swallow, since you can mix it in with your food or a drink. To make a calcium powder supplement from eggshells, bake the shells in an oven for a few minutes on low heat until they are completely dry and brittle, then grind them into a fine powder.
6. Abrasive Cleaner
Here’s one of the more handy used for eggshells! Since eggshells are so hard, they can be used as an abrasive cleaner around your home. Make sure you wash them well then dry them thoroughly first. Then, crush them up, mix them with a little detergent, and scour away tough grime on pans.
Since there are so many uses for eggshells, you may want to start collecting them as soon as possible. If you’ll be storing them inside, such as in your kitchen, though, make sure you rinse them thoroughly beforehand. Otherwise, you could end up with a nasty rotten egg smell in your home.
