It is beneficial to use egg shells when growing your own vegetables like tomato, pepper and aubergine or plants such as roses, hydrangeas, spider plants, ferns and ivy. Another way to add this homemade fertiliser to your plants is through a calcium solution.
There are multiple plants that benefit from eggshells in your garden. Tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, spinach, lettuce, Swiss chard, flowers, strawberries and squash are some examples!
One final note: Make sure your soils aren't already alkaline before you add anything to up the pH; and never ever use eggshells or other pH-raisers around acid-loving plants like azaleas and rhododendrons.
Eggshells are a fantastic addition to the garden! Not only are they a natural pest repellent, but they also provided much-needed calcium for your plants. Winter is the perfect time to start saving eggshells so you'll have a nice little stockpile when spring arrives! Eggshells are a fantastic addition to the garden!
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).
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!!
The reaction of the eggshell in vinegar is an acid-base reaction. When you submerge an egg in vinegar, the shell dissolves, leaving the inner semi-permeable membrane intact. Vinegar (acid) breaks apart the solid calcium carbonate crystals (base) in the eggshell into their calcium and carbonate parts.
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.
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.
Coffee grounds are rich in nutrients, especially nitrogen. They also have some amount of other nutrients like potassium and phosphorous. Overall, this means that adding coffee grounds to your garden can work fairly well as a fertiliser. Coffee should be spread in a thin layer, rather than being clumped in one place.
The idea here is that blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency, so adding calcium-rich eggshells to the soil could provide calcium to your tomatoes (or other plants that suffer from blossom end rot). It's true that blossom end rot is a sign of calcium deficiency in fruits (tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, etc).
Indeed, there is some truth to the theory, and yes, birds do eat eggshells in the wild, especially after laying eggs. The behavior assists them in regaining the calcium used in the egg formation process.
For example, lavender does not enjoy acidic soil. If the soil in your region is acidic, mix eggshells in it to make the soil neutral and tolerable for the plant to grow properly.
"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.
Which plants like coffee grounds? Especially plants that like acidic soil are very happy with coffee grounds. For example, your beautiful hydrangeas, your radiant roses, the lawn or the lavender bushes, but also the gardenia, chamomile and rhododendrons.
In a word, yes. Eggshells are a great addition to most gardens and houseplants since they contain calcium carbonate, which strengthens the structure of plants. In fact, all eggs—whether they're speckled, brown or white—are primarily made of this nutrient and contain potassium and phosphorous.
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.
Coffee grounds are a popular addition to composting material, and they can have several beneficial effects when added to compost piles. Coffee grounds are considered green materials, as they are rich in nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant growth.
Banana peels are a great ingredient for your compost or worm farm, adding lots of nutrients to the organic recycling process. Council is making purchasing your organic recycling system easier with our compost rebate program.
Avoid using coffee grounds on alkaline-loving trees, such as linden, ironwood, red chestnut and arborvitae. Coffee grounds used as mulch or compost inhibit plant growth on geranium, asparagus fern, Chinese mustard and Italian ryegrass. Definitely don't use coffee grounds with these plants.
The eggshells will naturally decompose, and they will add calcium and nitrogen to your soil; necessary nutrients for your plants. Calcium is very good for tomatoes because it prevents blossom end rot.
Symptoms of calcium deficiency include stunted plant growth, leaf curling, dark leaf veins, weakened plants, and blossom-end rot in fruits. Fruit plants like tomatoes and peppers may develop dark, sunken areas in the fruit.
According to our friends at Delish, adding a teaspoon of baking soda to your boiling pot of water will help the shell peel off seamlessly. Why? The alkaline in the baking soda will help your egg whites loosen up from the shell, making it easier to peel.
Lay shells evenly on a sheet pan. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes to dry the shells. Transfer shells to a food processor and pulse until finely crushed. Spread a thin layer of eggshell powder around the roots of vulnerable garden plants (repeat after heavy rain).
The vinegar contains ethanoic acid (also known as acetic acid), which reacts with calcium carbonate in the eggshell. One product of the reaction is carbon dioxide gas, which appears as little bubbles forming on the eggshell. Over time, this chemical reaction dissolves away the hard eggshell.