Eggs are a very healthy and nutritious food, but what about the shells? While many people will simply bin or compost their eggshells once the white and yolk have been removed there are other uses for them, this entry looks at just a few.

In The Garden

Slugs do not appreciate having to travel over jagged and rough terrain in order to get a meal, many gardeners find that simply placing a ring of broken eggshell pieces around any prized plants helps to keep the little blighters away. Although you could always employ a friendly neighbourhood hedgehog to eat the slugs for you.

Crushed eggshells can also be used to regulate the acidity of a garden wormery.

Growing cress is a simple task that even very young children can take part in. For this project the eggshell needs to be fairly whole, possibly from your boiled egg at breakfast time. Once you have a suitable eggshell you will need cress seeds and some wet cotton wool. Put the wet cotton wool ball into the eggshell and then sprinkle in the cress seeds.Put the eggshell on a sunny windowsill. The shoots of cress should appear in three to five days and can be eaten once the leaves are fully opened. Cress is tasty in salads and also in egg sandwiches.

Decoration

You probably remember painting hard boiled eggs as a child when it came to Easter time, but this is not the only way in which eggshells can be used decoratively. Try this one with your younger family members. Take three or four eggshells and paint them each a different colour, once this is done and the paint had dried, put the eggshells in to a sandwich bag. This next stage should be done by an adult, take a rolling pin or similar object and roll it over the eggshells ONCE to break them into small pieces. Next you will need a plain coloured picture frame, preferrably a couple of inches wide. Cover this with PVA glue and arrange the coloured pieces of eggshell on it to create a multicoloured mosaic effect.

Blown eggs can be made into interesting mobiles to hang around your house. To blow an egg, simply pierce each end with a needle or other sharp object and then blow out the contents. You can now thread string through the eggshell and decorate it however you choose. You could have a family tree with each member represented by an eggshell portrait, or you could add papier mache shapes to your eggshell to turn it into a fish or a plane or a spaceship. It is entirely up to you.

Other Ideas

Some people beleive that egshells if not crushed can be used as boats by witches. This means that all eggshells must be holed or crushed before they can be disposed of or used for craft activities.

Finely crushed eggshells are also useful when making wine which you do not wish to go cloudy. The tiny pieces of shell absorb the carbon dioxide which makes the wine cloudy and then floats to the top of the wine to release the gas. This is part of the brewing process of some country and amateur winemakers.

If you like to make homemade cat food then you can include a small amount of finely crushed eggshell to ensure that your feline friend gets the calcium that they would normally get get from the bones of small animals that they would eat in the wild.

There are many other things you can do with your eggshells. I have listed a few just to get you started. So next time you are making a cake or a fried egg, dont just throw the shell away, instead use it to make something interesting.