We located our organic broccoli seed packet from last year's garden and hit up our gardening Pinterest boards (mine & hers) where we've been collecting ideas for creative planting all winter. We had one particular idea we'd seen pinned in mind and couldn't wait to try for ourselves — eggshell seed planters.
Evidently, eggshells make the perfect size seed starters, are natural, biodegradable, can be planted directly into the soil after being cracked a little, and supply nourishment to the plant and surrounding soil (not to mention they're free).
After saving the shells from this week's eggs, we set out to make our eggshell planters. Today we're sharing just how we went about it for those of you that might also want to give it a whirl as planting season starts up!
You'll Need:
- Eggs
- Egg carton
- Seeds
- Planting soil
- Small spoon
- Spray bottle
- Awl, or wide sharp needle
2. Reserve eggshells, rinse well inside and out with water. For extra caution, we decided to boil the shells for a few minutes to make sure all traces of egg were cleaned out. You can see how the shells foamed up a bit, letting us know we hadn't gotten everything out with the simple rinse.
3. Rinse eggshells again, and gently place them back in their egg carton to dry. Once dry, gently chip any rough edges of the eggs to desired opening size.
4. Use awl, or wide sharp needle to gently puncture a single hole in the base of the eggshell. This will create a drainage hole for your egg planter. I punctured our shells from the inside against a thin kitchen towel, then reinforced through the back-end to ensure proper drainage could take place. During this step, you may have to remove parts of the thin membrane alongside the eggshell.
5. Place eggshells back in carton and spray gently with water using your spray bottle.
6. With a small spoon, gently scoop planting or potting soil into eggshell to fill (we went with Burpee organic seed starting mix). You may want to gently shake egg to even out soil.
7. Plant seeds according to directions to determine depth and any other special care.
8. Spritz again gently with spray bottle and place in well lit area with sun indoors.
9. Water plants accordingly, watch and wait for your seedlings to sprout.
10. Once sprouts have grown large enough to transfer, thin them out and plant directly into the ground or larger planter after gently cracking the eggshell around them. The roots will grow beyond the eggshell into the soil, the shell will continue to provide nourishment to the plant and surrounding soil, and will eventually will biodegrade.
If you're as eager to try out this project as we were, plug in your zip code to Sprout Robot and see what seed varieties are ready for indoor planting in your area.
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Such a great idea! Thanks for the tutorial. I was wondering about your avocados. Sounds like you've done well with those :)
ReplyDeleteYes - they've continued to slowly develop which we are glad of - secretly worried they might just give up after the move.
DeleteWe are going to be starting a garden at my children's school this spring. What a wonderful idea for them to begin the shoots indoors while we are building their beds!
ReplyDeleteLisa! What a great idea and good way to help keep the kids involved. We hope you'll shoot some pics our way when and if you get the chance!
DeleteMy father always added rinsed egg shells directly to his watering "pail" for his inside plants. Then, they were in there waiting, ready to go for his weekly or bi-weekly plant watering (whatever time schedule he was on).
ReplyDeleteShannon, that is so cool - did he use them as a supplement to the water to add nutrients when watering? How clever.
DeleteI'm so happy to find this web site! However, I question the necessity (and perhaps even the wisdom) of boiling the shells. We eat the contents of that shell! The residual inside the shell and the membrane are natural and undoubtedly full of nutrients. It seems to me that they would only contribute to the growth process. It will all biodegrade, and I don't understand why it should be necessary to destroy those parts of the eggshell.
ReplyDeleteHey there!
DeleteThanks so much for taking the time to stop in and say hello - so glad to have you here! We think your insight here could be spot on and admit to being overly cautious when it came to the boiling stage, trying to wipe out any chance of salmonella.
We hope you'll try these little planters and let us know how it works out if you forgo the boiling stage!
I have planted a host of seedlings in egg shells and never washed the shells, in fact I've been told the unwashed eggshells are great for plants...lots of vitamins...
ReplyDeleteSo good to hear you've tried it and it works fine — gives us the courage to forgo the boil next time round!
Deletegreat idea
ReplyDeletei love this! just in time for my seed planting!!
ReplyDeleteAwesome! So glad it was helpful!
DeleteI've been using eggshell starters successfully for over three decades. Learned from my Grandfather. In later life he always called eggs GMVs (God's multi-vitamins).
ReplyDeleteConsider these tips:
1. Just brake the eggs into two at the center and you get double the number of planters and it is much easier. Large or X-Large eggs work best.
2. Don't rinse at all, just place shells in sunshine for four hours to a day. Great, free, and safe sanitizer. The dried egg white is a free additional fertilizer. Be sure egg interior faces up so the sun can work.
3. An awl is OK, or go ahead and fill with your seed starting mixture. Then you can just give the gentlest of taps to get a crack on the bottom, and the water will seep out just fine.
Loved these tips! Thanks so much — we are marking them for when we get started planting again!
DeleteI'm going to try this! Also, I can't get www.sproutrobot.com to work. Keep getting an application error. Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteHey Donna,
DeleteSo glad you might try it — sprout robot website seems to be working OK on this end — are you still having trouble accessing it?
I love your web site, such fantastic ideas! Thank you for sharing!
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Colleen Donovan (Western Australia)
Cuteness overload! If learning cotyledon and dicotyledon is this fun, I would have wanted to have a green thumb way back in grade school! In case you lack pots at home when badly needed to plant, eggshells are great. You may place it in a new pot if they outgrow the shells anyway. I wonder how cute they are hanging from the roof of my little greenhouse.
ReplyDeleteAnother goodie. Much cheaper than the oh so expensive bio-degradables.
ReplyDeleteAnd, we 're always told to keep the crushed egg shells to mulch around the rosemary pots. Any thoughts?