Coffee has perks for you and your garden
Posted on June 27th, 2008 – 8:54 AMBy Jaime Chismar
How do you like your coffee — black, iced or composted?
A recent medical study found that folks who drink a cup of coffee every day may live longer than those who don’t. This is good news for us gardeners who need a morning jolt of java before we put on our gardening gloves. Trust me, no one wants a bleary-eyed Greengirl wandering with pruning sheers through their back yard. (Luckily, our sand cherry shrub is making a come back.)
Besides increasing gardener awareness, drinking coffee also has another important side effect — The grounds make excellent soil. But what is the best way to utilize this nitrogen-rich treat, as compost or as a side dressing?
Chime in fellow coffee fans and help GG reader Mark:
Could someone post about using un-composted coffee grounds in the garden? My wife brought home a large bag of used coffee grounds from Starbucks, and I’m not sure how to use them in the vegetable garden. I’ve got tomatoes, carrots, onions, herbs, romaine lettuces, peppers, corn, snap peas - the usual suspects. Should I just lay down a layer around all of them? Thanks!
Mark
Do you compost your coffee grounds or directly apply them to your plants? Where do you get your coffee grounds, your kitchen or your favorite coffee shop?
12 Responses to "Coffee has perks for you and your garden"
I compost our daily coffee grounds complete with their unbleached paper filter.
Are grounds considered browns or greens when it comes to composting? My mind says browns since they are well… brown in color and haven’t been living for some time.
I apply my husbands coffee grounds to the space under the azeala and evergreens. Tea leaves I apply to the area around the roses. Any excess I compost as both are acidic and balance out the other stuff in the compost tumbler. I treat them as “brown stuff” in the compost as they don’t seem to heat up the mix like weeds and grass clippings, orange peels, etc. do.
Ah coffee, my good friend, I would be half the person I am without you…
I now compost most of my grounds, but I have been to known to sprinkle them in the garden. My plants seem to love it and they smell so good when I am digging around. I also hear that worms love coffee grounds, don’t know if that’s true, but I wouldn’t put it past them!
Worms play such an important role in the garden. I wonder if coffee makes them work faster? Caffeinated worm casings — Whee!
We’ve been composting them. But the wife recently read that coffee grounds help rhododendron & we have an old one that needs help - so she saved a week’s worth to add to the mulch around the Rhodi.
In college, I’d add coffee grounds to the soil of my house plants. By the end of the summer, we had healthy fruit fly population.
I’ve heard that Anodyne on Nicollet Avenue gives away their “supply” on Fridays. Anyone know of other places in town that save their grounds for gardeners?
Bsimon,
I compost my coffee grounds, sometimes right into the garden, sometimes into the composter. But according to horticulturist Nancy Rose, coffee grounds won’t make your old rhodi any happier. Read this:
Most plants grow well in soils with pH levels between 5.5 and
7.0 (A soil pH of 7.0 is neutral, under 7.0 is acidic, above that
is alkaline.) However, a few plants need very acidic soil.Azaleas, rhododendrons and blueberries grow best in soils with a pH of 4.5 to 5.5.In soils with higher pH levels, these plants can’t take up iron from the soil, which results in chlorosis. (The leaves turn yellow while the leaf veins remain green.)
Coffee grounds are a good source of organic matter, but spreading
them around plants won’t do much to lower the soil pH. Instead, add
them to your compost pile and use the finished compost as a
nutrient-rich mulch for all of your plants.
The best way to lower soil pH is by adding elemental sulfur. Sulfur should be incorporated into the soil several months before you plan to plant acid-loving shrubs. If you’ve already planted, you can still add the sulfur and work it into the soil surface, but it will take several months for the soil pH to drop.
I don’t drink coffee but the people in my building at work save the grounds from the coffee machine for me into a bucket. I empty every few days and bring it home. The grounds and filters go right into my compost bin. Sometimes if I’m really bored and have nothing else to do, I’ll run the (dried) filters through the paper shredder to speed decomposition (I’m usually not that bored though). Other times I use the filters in the garden pathways under the leaf mold. Eventually the filters disappear.
Michele,what a cool idea about the paper shredder. I’ve got a shredder in the basement I never use. Maybe I’ll start drinking coffee again!
Coffee grounds are great for prepping the soil if you are growing Blueberries (or planning too). They need a good well established acidic soil. I know Tillie’s Bean on 28th Ave and 38th Street in South Mpls gives away their old grounds to those who ask.
Bsimon: My North Carolina grandmother always said that the best fertilizer for rhododendrons (or azaleas) was old rhododendron (or azalea) leaves, so I always leave the clippings underneath the bush. It seems to help.
Greengirls Connie Nelson, Robyn Dochterman and Jaime Chismar are dishin' the dirt from the backyard garden and beyond. Whether you're a greenthumb or greenhorn, they're eager to learn from your misshaps, mistakes -- and most importantly, your sweet successes -- all growing season long.
Need more Greengirls? Follow along on Twitter:
Subscribe to Greengirls
Learn more about RSS
Garden resources
Categories
- Apples, Plums + Tree fruits (18)
- Asparagus (3)
- Beans + Peas (9)
- Bees (12)
- Beets, Carrots + Root veggies (7)
- Berries (10)
- Books + Resources (13)
- Chickens (13)
- Compost (7)
- Container gardening (7)
- Corn (2)
- Critters + vermin (27)
- Cucumbers + Melons (15)
- Farmer's Markets (1)
- Flowers + Grasses (27)
- Garlic (5)
- Greens + Lettuces (10)
- Herbs (6)
- Lawn care (12)
- Mulch (7)
- Mystery plants (9)
- Potatoes (9)
- Preserving (7)
- Rain gardens (2)
- Seed starting (16)
- Soil care (4)
- Squashes + gourds (1)
- Succulents (2)
- Tomatoes, Peppers + Eggplant (38)
- Tools, gloves, rain barrels + more (17)
- Transplanting (1)
- Tree + shrub care (4)
- Uncategorized (164)
- Water gardens (3)
- Weather woes (25)
- Weeds (13)
- Weekend to-dos (11)