I heard an idea a while ago about starting seedlings in eggshells and decided to give it a shot. These are my impatiens, just popped up out of their "egg beds."
After a very big breakfast one morning, I washed the inside of the eggs out, pricked the bottom of the shells with tiny holes for drainage and prepared the soil.
Because I wasn't sure about the quality of soil or what fungus it may contain, I baked it in the oven at 400F for about 5 minutes, as some fungus's can interfere with root health. It did NOT smell good, but what's Febreeze for, anyway?
Then I planted two seeds per egg shell, gave them a good sprinkling and slid the whole egg crate into a zip-top plastic bag. Plastic wrap would work as well. This keeps moisture like a mini green house and you don't have to worry about under/over watering the seedlings. They germinated in about 11 days, and I've already transplanted four egg shells of seedlings into a large pot.
The main perk of starting seedlings in eggshells is that there is no damage done to the tiny baby roots when transferring- I just plopped the whole egg into the soil-filled pot, covered with a little more soil and gave it a good dose of water! Plus the eggshells are ready-made fertilizer! I'll post some pictures if I manage to grow the impatiens to full bloom.
I learned this about impatiens while doing some research:
Impatiens flowers take their name from the Latin, impatiens, "impatient." They are so called because their ripe seed pods will sometimes burst open from even a light touch (as if they were "impatient" to open).
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