If you're a regular baker or even just love scrambled eggs, you probably throw away a lot of eggshells. But one TikToker has shared her unbeatable hack for using cracked eggshells to improve her garden.
The scoop
In her now-viral TikTok, Pam Parish (@pamparish) showed us how to both help her garden and reduce food waste.
@pamparish Don't throw away those egg shells! They're great for gardening 🧑🌾 #farmlife #canningtok #canningtiktok #gardenhack #gardening #TheAdamProject #TurboTaxAlphorn #SchickAsks #fyp ♬ Candy Crush - David Das
Parish explained that eggshells can actually be super helpful for growing tomato plants, as well as other foods in your garden. Because they have a ton of nutrients like calcium, egg shells can be used as a DIY and chemical-free fertilizer.
This hack is super easy. Basically, all Parish did was throw her shells in the oven at 180℉ for a few hours to dry them out. Then, she ground them up into a powder using a blender.
And voila, a DIY fertilizer. As Parish put it, "We use this [powder] throughout gardening season, especially around tomatoes, they're really good."
How it's helping
Besides the obvious benefits to your garden, this eggshell hack is great for reducing food waste.
Incredibly, nothing takes up more space in American landfills than thrown-away food, which ends up rotting and producing planet-warming methane gas. And this gas is potent, heating up the Earth at a rate at least 28 times faster than carbon dioxide, pound for pound.
So instead of throwing away perfectly good fodder for your garden, you can quickly and easily make your own eggshell fertilizer.
What everyone's saying
The comments section on Parish's post was full of egg-celent feedback. In one comment with nearly 1,000 likes, a user claimed, "I use the shells around my tomatoes … keeps the slugs off!"
Another explained how she used this trick to save her plants: "I did this and sprinkled it … around my lily and it has really bounced back."
Several others explained that they use a similar trick, using the sun instead of the oven to dry out the shells. But whatever method you use to dry out your used egg shells, this DIY fertilizer will be good for your garden and the planet.
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