Monday, May 14, 2012

Egg Shell Tea for the Garden

Brad and I have been composting for about 9 months now (something that I keep meaning to write a post on, it will come soon).  At first we put egg shells in along with our other food scraps, but lately we have found a better use for them.  I know that putting egg shells in your compost is great, but it drives me crazy how they never ever ever seem to break down.  For a while we went back to throwing them in the regular garbage, but I felt guilty about that.  Now we get the nutrients in a faster process.  I present to you, egg shell tea.

Just kidding.  But it is similar.

We crush and rinse the egg shells to make sure all the egg white is off of them.  Then we soak the egg shells in water for 2-3 days usually.  Then we use that water to water our plants.  I use it particularly for the spider plant, but also for the pot of spinach we are growing outside.  I have noticed a big growth spurt specifically in our spider plant since I began to water with the "egg shell tea."

Egg shells contain water soluble nutrients such as calcium, potassium, and phosphorus.  Soaking the shells allows me to quickly extract these nutrients and feed them to our plants.  Egg shells are also alkaline, and thus using this water somewhat increases the pH level of the soil which is beneficial to some plants.

How do you use egg shells?

4 comments:

  1. Ok-sold-I am getting a spider plant and watering it with eggshell tea! I'm a notorious plant killer so I'm excited to try this and see if it will work for me. Thanks, Grace, I hope you're doing well. We miss you!

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    1. That's awesome. I am excited for you. I am a plant killer as well, haha, so I am always extra enthusiastic when something is thriving. Miss you guys too!

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  2. What a fantastic idea! I definitely know what you mean about them never seeming to break down. I'm really looking forward to your post on compost. I also compost [[well...try anyway]] I'm having trouble getting it started...so I look forward to reading your tips on that. =]

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  3. It is a a good tip! During fruiting of plants, the lack of calcium make tomatoes perishable, black spots on the bottom. Another benefit is the sharp edge of egg shell irritate the soft body of slugs.

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