I have an abundance of eggs. A plethora. A….LOT! Stacks of cartons in the refrigerator; a full basket every day. It’s wonderful! I’ve used some of the eggs with our fresh asparagus to make frittata, I’ve baked and fixed breakfasts—I’ve even taken eggs to church on Sunday morning and handed them out.
Today, I’m putting several dozen extra eggs into the freezer. When autumn and holiday baking time arrives—just in time for the hens’ annual molt—I will have eggs on hand. You can read how I freeze the eggs in this post I wrote last fall—“Using Spring Eggs In Fall HolidayBaking.”
This spring, I’m not only saving eggs—I’m saving the egg shells. The shells aren’t going in the freezer for use later in the year, though; they are going into a container for use in just a few weeks. Each emptied egg shell is washed, inside and out, and the membrane is removed. I let them dry and then toss them into a covered container.
When I’m ready to use the egg shells—or when I have a couple of containers full—I will put them on a cookie sheet in a low oven (250 degrees) for about 20 minutes. This should sterilize the clean egg shells—remove any bacteria that might possibly be clinging to the shell.
And then…are you guessing what I will be doing with them? There are lots of uses for cleaned, crushed egg shells—some people give them to their chickens or leave them out for wild birds for added dietary calcium; others cover them with boiling water and make a “calcium tea” for their potted plants. The cleaned shells are great to toss into a compost pile, too—the added nutrients make the compost richer, and since the shells are cleaned, there’s less chance of snoopy “critters” finding them tasty snacks. I plan to use the saved eggshells for slug deterrent in my garden beds.
I’ve gardened organically for many years. No herbicides or pesticides have gone in, on or near the beds (or anywhere on our 5 acres, for that matter). I companion plant flowers and vegetables to deter harmful insects and to encourage beneficials and pollinators. There’s bee balm growing at one end of the garden, tansy at the other end, and nasturtiums and marigolds in between—on summer days there’s a pleasant humming around the plants. I’ve made a couple of toad houses from old pots, and even gritted my teeth and smiled when I saw the large snake that patrols the asparagus bed.
What I haven’t been able to discourage are slugs. Slimy, sticky, icky, leaf eating, plant destroying slugs. What? Am I too harsh? Have you started cabbages and broccoli from seed, babied the tiny seedlings along in your front room near the window with the best light, carefully watering, turning, fanning for weeks…set them out carefully after hardening them in the screen room for a few days…watching the weather, reading the forecast…tucking them into the prepared beds…and then checking one morning to find big holes in the leaves? Or maybe just a single stalk left and a full, fat slug lolling next to it? Too harsh? I think not. It makes me want to pick off every slug, from every garden surface and STOMP them all.
Did you ever try to pick slugs off anything? Or stomp them? Your fingers will turn yellowish and stick together—and they don’t even squish, just sort of shoot out from under your boot to another part of the garden.
So, obviously, I have some experience with slugs, and I’m perhaps over-reacting just a little. I’ve tried leaving out low saucers of beer for slugs—that was supposed to work (didn’t-I think they liked it).
Snails and slugs, however, supposedly do not like crawling over rough, sharp surfaces. Last year, I cut sandpaper collars for each cabbage and broccoli that I planted. It did work. (It was a lot of work.) I found that, as the plant grew and the collar didn’t, I had to remove the sandpaper, but by that time the plants were large enough and strong enough to fend for themselves. And, the slugs had left them alone while they grew.
This year—I’m going to use crushed eggshells around the plants. As each tiny plant goes into the ground, I’m going to ring it with eggshells, hoping that their sharp edges keep the slugs away. As an added bonus, the eggshells will add nutrients to the soil. All those eggs I’m gathering, every day, will help keep the slugs away! I hope.
I have a fairly small garden—I only set out a couple dozen cabbage plants, for example. If I planted acres and acres, I doubt I would consider using this method as a slug deterrent, but it’s worth a try. I have the extra eggshells, the desire to raise healthy plants, and I refuse to let the slugs take over the garden without a good fight.
What do you think? Will it work? Have you tried this method of slug deterrent?
How do you use egg shells?
39 Comments
I put finely ground eggshells into my homemade soap to make a “lava” type scrubbing soap. It works GREAT!
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Has anyone ever used just plain old salt sprinkled around the plants?
would someone please tell me why you have to wash the inside of an egg? thank you
Best thing for slugs is a 12 gauge shotgun. What? Well, yeah, it is a bit tough on the tomatoes … 😉
My sister-in-law introduced us to using egg shells halves to start tomato seedlings (but we start all sorts of seedlings in them.) Not filling the egg shell completely up with soil allows for easy watering. We write the names of the plants on the egg cartons that hold each new seedling til time to plant. When planting, crunch the bottom of the egg shell slightly to allow the roots to escape and establish themselves into the soil. Not burying the whole shell under ground will give the plant a reservoir when watering.
Neat idea!
I take my egg shells and dry them by popping them into the mirowave for 1 1/2 min on high. Then when I have enough shells, I run them thru the coffee grinder on the expresso setting so they are a fine dust, then add it to the ground osyter shell I put out for the chickens. “the circle of life”
If you’re looking for an organic slug control try sluggo. There are some other brands of the same thing. “Sluggo plus” adds spinosad so it works for cutworms too.
You should look into ducks (especially runner breeds) as they are excellent at cleaning up the slugs in your garden while leaving the plants mostly alone. Plus you get the added bonus of duck eggs.
-Lars Larson
What’s mowing down your seedlings isn’t likely slugs, or not jsut slugs, it’s cutworms. A collar of anything stiff will keep them at bay since they live in the inch or so of soil and an inch above it. I’ve used old yogurt containers with the bottoms cut out or saved-up toilet paper rolls and the like.
The only thing I’ve ever found for slugs is copper tape. It’s quite filmy thin, but it’s enough apparently to give the wet slugs an electric shock that makes them back off. The tape can be laid on the soil and pinned with something like drugstore hairpins.
The beer thing never worked for me, either, and I’ve read that like Japanese beetle traps, it mainly just causes every slug in the neighborhood to converge on your garden when they smell it.
Use food grade D. E. and by all means wear a mask. A 2 liter bottle top inverted into bottom filled with stale beer sunk into ground then feed the chickens slugs ala beer during raining season keep 2 gallon lid over trap to allow slugs to crawl in.
It’s very important to keep some egg shell in your vermicomposter (worms)as they need the calcium carbonate for reproduction. So the worms get some. I crush most of my shells in a coffee grinder or with a mortar and pestle and feed them to the girls (my hens). I have tried eggshells and coffee grounds in the garden as organic slug and snail deterrent but to no avail. What does work is a disposable cup with lid and a plastic spoon and a flashlight. We FILLED the cup the first night. It was so gross the girls wouldn’t eat it, so they got put in the trash. Filled another cup a week later (about 11pm is a good time) and it’s been a year and a half and we’re only now seeing any slugs out there at all.
you are right about the worms also use shredded leaves around your plants for mulch and moisture the food for worms. If you fish bury the guts in the garden. Feed your chickens slugs and any bugs you catch make a maggot trap for your chickens all bugs are protein for them.
I grind up our egg shells in a VitaMix. I then either pour the powder around the tomato plants or I dump it into our compost heap.
Our biggest nemisis is ants. They love broccoli, beet, and kohlrabi seedlings.
That’s a great solution!
Have you tried “companion planting” to cut down on ants? I’ve read that tansy, pennyroyal and even catnip can be ant deterrents.
I use a blender add water to shells push puree and throw pieces to chickens, also on to the land. The egg-shells chickens love it worms will reproduce at a better rate in your lawn and garden. I had to show neighbor how to grow grass in 3 days and too sharpen and raise her blade to 2-3/4 to 3 inches for best results instead of scalping her lawn.
I use corn meal for ants. I sprinkle it on their ant hills, around my back doorway, on the frame work for the rabbit cage, etc. Supposedly they gorge themselves on the meal and carry leftovers back to the colony – it expands when they eat it and then hardens like cement. What ever it does, it works for me. One box of Jiffy gets me through the summer. I may try making a tray for it on top of my hummingbird feeders. I would think some kind of bottle cap should work.
I just donated my first batch of organic, free range eggs to our local food bank! Wow, what a feeling! I do all the other stuff with shells to: baked and crushed for the chickens, crushed an put in the trench just before
Well done!
I have used crushed egg shells for years to protect my newly set-out flowers (bedding plants) from those hungry slugs. Works for me. The ones that crawl up the iris leaves–I put on rubber gloves and squish them.
I have had trouble with slugs around my rhubarb. I used crushed egg shells around them and saw a big improvement. They didn’t really breakdown over the winter so I am planning to not use so many this year. Now if only they would stop the deer!
That makes sense–about them not breaking down; I have crushed them into compost and found them still there the next season when I was shoveling and turning. Good to know!
As for deer–the only thing we’ve found that really works is to have double fencing. They can jump one, but not two if they are about three feet apart.
I use crushed egg shells and give it to my chickens along with left over vegetable and fruit scraps. I was skeptical at first, but with encouragement from my mother that did this with her chickens when she was growing up. I’ve been giving crushed shells to my chickens for almost 3 years and haven’t had the first chicken eat their own egg. It’s a great source of calcium.
It is a great source of calcium you’re right. I have never quite dared feed the shells back to the hens, even though I know that’s how chickens must have gotten their extra calcium needs fulfilled fin years gone by. We don’t live nearly close enough to a source of oyster shell for that to have been used! I’m glad you’ve had good luck–and I’m glad your mother is a chicken enthusiast, too!
I also wash and crush my shells, I use a mortar and pestle, and have heard that as long as there is nothing bigger than 1/4″ the chickens won’t be encouraged to eat eggs. It hasn’t been a problem so far. I did ring my Hostas with crushed shells to keep the slugs down, as well as my hydrangeas, it made quite a difference. Another use for them is to keep an old blender for the garden, and use egg shells (calcium), banana peels (potassium) and I think it was Epsom salts for magnesium, as tonic, with some left over apple juice to get your roses blooming. There are lots of old fashioned uses for all kinds of things in the garden. We should not let them die off and get lost.
Extra eggs can be taken the local food bank every now and then, too. 🙂
Excellent idea!
I use diatomaceous earth around my plants and also in my chicken house in the layer boxes and in my runs, it is just crushed shells from the sea and it will keep the flies down, I also feed it to my goats and horses and it makes their manure inhabitable to the flies! The slugs hate it and it is all natural!
I use food grade DE in the coop corners and nest boxes, too, and I’ve read that farmers have used it as a wormer for their livestock. Interesting note about the flies!
I know it can be used as a plant dust, but I’ve not used it around the plants because once it’s wet, it doesn’t work–or at least not well–and it seems like it’s wet weather that the slugs like the best here. Thanks for your note and observations.
Hello
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I add the crushed shells around my tomato plants, or put them into my compost pile.. High up to keep my chickens from scratching them out and thinking that eggshells are OK to eat.
I add the crushed shells around my tomato plants, or put them into my compost pile.. High up to keep my chickens from scratching them out and thinking that eggshells are OK to eat.
I don’t like to give the crushed egg shells to the hens either. I know that many people do, but I just don’t like to encourage the practice. I have a self-feeder for oyster shell that they always have access to, and that’s what I use.
I did add cleaned, crushed, sanitized egg shells in a ring around my seedling broccoli and brussels sprouts last fall, thinking it’d be a good thing, like you say. Alas, the squirrels and mice chomped on the calcium treats and lopped off the seedlings as well! I won’t do that again.
Rats. I’m hoping it works better than that for me!
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