The other day, whilst visiting a friend at her home I came across what I would consider a rather odd sight- a large white egg sitting alone on what seemed to be a terra cotta tray, placed strategically on her coffee table.
You see, my friend has quite the fancy for odd objects so I thought that the egg was probably just one of her many peculiar decorating ornaments. Little did it occur to me that this egg was no ordinary egg (or an egg at all) but instead an “uncracked” eggling
Honestly, at that point, even if someone had just told me what it was- an uncracked eggling it still would have made no sense to me. What was an eggling anyways? The young of an egg? That can’t possibly be right.
Anyways, it wasn’t until she introduced me to the rest of her egglings collection (which included 3 blossomed ones) did I realize that the “ordinary looking yet somewhat big egg” was actually a host pot for plant germination!
Now I’ve seen people decorate their plants with egg shells ( my neighbor paints them then puts them onto the end of her aloe plant’s leaves – from far they mimic the appearance of flowers) but I can’t quite say I’ve seen it used as a pot. I suppose the fragile nature of the shell walls would be a good explanation why.
So what exactly is an eggling? As you can gather by now, it’s not a real egg. In fact it’s a replica, hand made of white porous ceramic containing fortified peat mixture with seeds readily sown into it. It’s really adorable too, measuring at approximately 54mm x 47.5mm.
Now if you are anything like me, you’re probably wondering what can be grown in such a tiny space…
Well there are in total 10 types of egglings -three herbs (basil, mint and thyme), three flowers (chrysanthemum, phlox, petunia), and four special edition varieties (lavender, cactus, red pepper, and wild strawberry).
Each eggling comes with a terra cotta tray and an extra seed pack to insure a growth success. All you have to do is give it a light tap on the top (make sure the egg is upright of course) to crack it open (top only) then water it, sun it and watch the magic happen.
There are enough nutrients in the eggling to nurture plants to grow in it for up to 5 months, after which you should transplant the eggling directly into the soil of a larger pot before shattering the eggling into small pieces where it can act as fertilizer in the soil.
I think this is a great little nature gift for kids who will surely love the design! And speaking of designs, if you think an eggling is cute, you should take a look at Nyokki, Taterpots and Petit Coco. My favourite is the Taterpots which look like winking spuds!
If you want to know where you can get them, just visit this page.
