Thursday, April 26, 2012

Breakfast in the Garden

I love Saturday mornings. Our family generally sits down to a delicious brunch. I make coffee and Jared makes some sort of eggs, potatoes, veggies, cheese, and sometimes toast (from breakfast skillets to over-easy eggs, toast, and hashbrowns).

We have to fertilize to keep the raised garden beds in good shape so I talked to my uncle (he has raised beds and helped us build ours) and he said that he uses coffee grounds and crushed egg shells as fertilizer. So I've been doing the same. Then about a month or so ago I happened to see a pin on Pinterest about using egg shells as seed pots. I decided to try it out and I'm so glad that I did. My little plants are doing so well!

Step 5
Step 1: Eat an egg, but be sure to crack the egg toward the top so you leave 2/3 of the shell for a "pot".

Step 2: Fill half the egg with dirt.

Step 3: Put your seeds into the dirt.

Step 4: Fill the rest of the shell with dirt.

Step 5: Pat the dirt down so that the seeds are nicely "snuggled" in their dirt beds.

Step 6: Add more dirt till the egg is completely filled.

Step 7: In permanent marker, write the name of the plant directly on the egg for easy identification.

Step 8: Place the egg "pots" into an empty egg carton where the top cover has been removed.

Water when the dirt begins looking dry. Once seedlings are about 1" tall begin using some sort of plant food (the kind you add to water).

I did my first planting on April 12 and the plants are bigger than the ones I did in the newspaper pots.
1 week after planting
2 weeks after planting
Now I just need to go through and thin them. Once the weather is warm enough to harden the plants do so. After hardening, you can just plant the entire egg. There is no container to recycle because as the plant grows the egg becomes food for it!  :o)

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