Boil a gallon of water. Add 10–20 rinsed eggshells to the water. Allow the shells to sit in the water, soaking and cooling overnight. Strain the shells out of the water, and then water the garden.
Other crop plants to prioritise with a dose of egg shells include potatoes, cucumbers, peppers, courgettes, marrows and squash. Avoid adding egg shells in quantity to lime-hating (acid-loving plants) which include blueberries, rhododendrons, pieris and azaleas.
Place a dozen or two eggshells in cooking pot, add a gallon of water, and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let the mixture sit overnight. Remove the eggshells from the water the next day and use that eggshell tea to water plants. (And save the water in which you make hard boiled eggs for the same purpose!)
The advantage of using crushed eggshell is less energy needed for preparation, but the disadvantage relies on the time needed for eggshell degradation before it can provide nutrients for plants (Mitchell, 2005; Rai et al., 2014).
Crush your eggshells into a fine powder. To stop wild animals from smelling the echoes of raw eggs on your plants, give your eggshells a quick wash first. Add the crushed shells to a pan of boiling water, using about 10-20 eggs per 4.5 litres of water. The more eggshells you use, the stronger the fertiliser will be.
"Plants like strawberries, blueberries, kale, and cabbage prefer slightly acidic soil and adding in eggshells can do more harm than good," says Jen McDonald, certified organic gardener and co-founder of Garden Girls, a garden design company based in Houston, Texas.
Eggshells take a lot longer to break down compared to many other compostable goods, and too many of them can increase the acidity of your compost. This shouldn't be a problem, unless you plan on using it to grow plants that prefer low soil pH.
Eggshells are made of calcium carbonate. If you soak an egg in vinegar the eggshell will absorb the acid and break down, or dissolve. The calcium carbonate will become carbon dioxide gas, which will go into the air. What is left is the soft tissue that lined the inside of the eggshell.
Depending on the size of your garden, compile enough of each component to contribute a moderate amount to each hungry plant. Combine the two together, crush the eggshells by hand even more (which should be easier now that they're fully dry), and sprinkle the mixture across the soil bed.
Tea Can Work As A Natural Fertilizer
As the tea leaves and bag begin to break down and decompose, they release nutrients into the soil that helps plants retain water and thrive. That said, you should use tea only on your plants that like acidic soil.
Banana peels can be placed directly onto pot plant soil, or around the base of your garden as mulch. As they decompose, they will release nutrients into the soil to feed plants. If using banana peels in your garden, place a single layer straight on top of the soil, being sure not to let them touch the plant stem.
Boil a gallon of water. Add 10–20 rinsed eggshells to the water. Allow the shells to sit in the water, soaking and cooling overnight. Strain the shells out of the water, and then water the garden.
Are coffee grounds good for plants? Coffee grounds are an excellent compost ingredient and are fine to apply directly onto the soil around most garden plants if used with care and moderation. Coffee grounds contain nutrients that plants use for growth.
Because baking soda increases soil pH, many of the important macro and micro nutrients plants need may become unavailable to them. Baking soda in the garden can also contribute to soil compaction and crust build-up. This leaves the soil less porous causing nutrients and water to move poorly through it.
Grind the eggshells.
Add the ground eggshells to your compost bin to make mulch or pour them directly into your planting holes. Many master gardeners add coffee grounds, which are rich in nitrogen and potassium, to eggshell fertilizer for even more of a nutrient boost.
High-nitrogen fertilizers are known for causing huge growth in plants, which is why many types are rich in nitrogen or include it as the main component. Fertilizers high in nitrogen will also restore bright green hues to your foliage.
Because it takes several months for eggshells to break down and be absorbed by a plant's roots, it is recommended that they be tilled into the soil in fall. More shells can be mixed into your soil in the spring.
What Plants Don't Like Coffee Grounds? Knowing that most coffee grounds are acid-leaning, don't use fresh coffee grounds on plants that prefer alkaline soil. This includes asparagus, campanula, salvia, achillea and Mediterranean herbs like lavender, thyme and rosemary.
Foliar Spray
Commercial foliar calcium sprays (calcium acetate, calcium nitrate, and calcium chloride) are the quickest remedy for acute calcium deficiency, as plants absorb nutrients more efficiently through leaves than through roots.
You can put raw or cooked eggshells in compost, either washed or not, depending on how concerned you are about pests in your compost. You can put them in as is, but you will find that eggshells take a lot longer to break down in compost than other materials.
The calcium in the shells will strengthen the tomato plants, give you more buds (aka: tomatoes!) and sometimes even prevent blossom end rot – that brown disease that sometimes makes the bottom of your tomatoes brown and yucky!!
Egg residue can attract rodents to the garden. You may want to crush and recycle the shells in your compost pile and sprinkle the more attractive coffee grounds on the soil of vegetables, flowers and other plantings.