Using eggshells to plant seedlings

Yesterday I started planting my seeds for my garden this year by using eggshells for the seed pots.  It's good to use them because it helps to cut down on waste and the eggshells are biodegradable and completely natural.  Using eggshells adds vitamins to the soil that help your plants to grow strong, especially tomatoes. The additional calcium added to the soil helps to stop end rot in tomato plants.

This is how to use the eggshells to grow seedlings.

Using eggshells to plant seeds:

1) Take used eggshells, they need to be at least half intact.  If you don't have any shells around but you have eggs, you can always crack the eggs into a ziplock bag, add salt and lightly mix them like you would to scramble them.  It makes a sort of homemade egg beater that you can freeze.

2) Wash out the eggshells and let them dry.

3) Put the eggshells in a used egg carton



washed and dried eggshells

4) Fill eggshells up with dirt.  You can spoon it in or if you have thicker shells you can scoop it up if it isn't too wet and heavy

5) Plant your seedlings in the eggshells.  Works best with tomatoes and small plants such as herbs, but you can plant anything you want in them.



I scooped dirt in so it looks a little messy

 6) Once you see true leaves on your seedlings, roll the shells gently in your hand to start breaking it up and break a hole in the bottom of the shells.  Plant the whole shell in the soil so it can add calcium to your plants. 

Planting with this method makes it easy to add nutrients, easy to move around since they are in the cartons and an organic way to plant without having to worry about what is in your starter pots.

Try this and let me know how it works for you!  Post pictures of your seedlings on our Facebook page!