Today's top tip will save you a bit of space in your food waste bin, will keep your plants happy, and will hopefully lead to a joyous afternoon getting your hands dirty in the sunshine.
For the last week or so my housemates and I have been collecting eggshells. Due to a love of poached eggs and cherry pie, it didn't take us long to amass quite a number. I washed out the smelly bits then left them to dry on a paper towel neatly in a corner. I can confirm that no mice visited us during this period.
It was my friend Dan who first told me that you can use eggshells in fertiliser, and after a quick Google, it turns out he isn't the only one who feeds his plants in this way. Eggshells are full of calcium, and this beefs up the cell walls of plants, helping them to grow big and strong.
The sun was out at the weekend, so what better time to take to the garden with my pestle and mortar? I treated myself to a few new succulents (as you do) and set about repotting them. If you don't have a pestle and mortar (i.e. you're under the age of 30) feel free to improvise. I suggest crushing the eggshells in a regular bowl with the top of a regular spoon, or perhaps under a rolling pin on a chopping board.
For the last week or so my housemates and I have been collecting eggshells. Due to a love of poached eggs and cherry pie, it didn't take us long to amass quite a number. I washed out the smelly bits then left them to dry on a paper towel neatly in a corner. I can confirm that no mice visited us during this period.
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| Be careful out here or you'll be walking on eggshells. |
It was my friend Dan who first told me that you can use eggshells in fertiliser, and after a quick Google, it turns out he isn't the only one who feeds his plants in this way. Eggshells are full of calcium, and this beefs up the cell walls of plants, helping them to grow big and strong.
The sun was out at the weekend, so what better time to take to the garden with my pestle and mortar? I treated myself to a few new succulents (as you do) and set about repotting them. If you don't have a pestle and mortar (i.e. you're under the age of 30) feel free to improvise. I suggest crushing the eggshells in a regular bowl with the top of a regular spoon, or perhaps under a rolling pin on a chopping board.
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| The daily grind... |
Using roughly one or two eggshells per plant, I put a layer of compost in the pot, then added a dollop of ground eggshell, then mixed it together. The rest of the compost followed, along with the plant itself.
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| These beauties all benefitted from a little sprinkling of calcium. Look how happy they are. |
It might be a little while before I can speak of fantastic results, but I'll keep an eye on the cell walls of my plants and keep you posted.
If this all sounds like too much faff, and you also happen to have a strawberry plant that keeps getting mysteriously smaller each time it rains, you could use your eggshells for another purpose: as a mollusc deterrent. Building a protective layer around your beloved homegrowns is an ethical way of preventing slugs and snails from eating them. The calcium from the eggshells will wend its way into the soil this way, too, and a passing bird might even drop by for a snack. Endless benefits.
If you're totally on board with this and you're already wondering what else you can bury underneath your cactus, try the following: tea, ground coffee (for nitrogen), banana peels (for potassium), hair from your hairbrush (funny what the internet can throw up), and you can also pour the water from your boiled potatoes over your plants – once it has cooled, of course. Enjoy!
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