Are coffee grounds REALLY good for your garden? YES! Keep reading for tips on how they can help you grow.
For acid-loving plants like azaleas or magnolias,mix used grounds into the soil around their bases.
Used coffee grounds are acidic and high in the nutrients your garden requires. Mix them directly into the soil around acid-loving plants, such as rhododendrons, azaleas, hydrangeas, camellias and magnolias.
Your vegetables will benefit from the valuable nutrients in coffee grounds such as nitrogen and potassium. lightly mulch the coffee grounds around fast-growing vegetables, but don't apply the mulch too thickly or you could create a moisture and air barrier that can cause fungal growth. Mix grounds with brown leaves and grass clippings or lime to help balance the pH of the soil. Check in with a gardening expert for additional recommendations or your local Cooperative Extention office for a soil test.
Coffee grounds are great the composting process. The grounds have a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1 and act as green materials when added to the compost pile.
A compost pile's content should contain no more than 25 percent of coffe grounds. Counter the acidity of coffee grounds by adding one teaspoon of lime or wood chips for every five pounds of coffee grounds in your compost pile.
If you have a worm bin, feed worms with coffee grounds combined with brown material.
Try recycling your spent coffee grounds when you make your morning coffee. A five gallon bucket with a lid placed under the sink makes a great container to hold the grounds until you can get them to your compost pile.
Check with your local coffee shop to see if they have a coffee grounds recycling program. Starbucks is one company that recycles their used grounds. The used grounds are free upon request at Starbucks locations and are available year-round. Reused coffee bags are used to hold the Used grounds, and sealed with the "Starbucks Coffee Grounds as Compost" sticker.
Dwayne Haskell owns and operates Mistkits.com where complete misting kits, individual components, and advice can be found. After building his own misting system for his nursery, he realized he could design and build systems for small nurseries or home gardeners who are interested in starting their own plants from cuttings.
He has written an E-book titled Build an Arbor in Just One Weekend, and another on gardening, landscaping and plant propagation tips. He also enjoys teaching others how to grow their own landscape plants and owns and moderates the Mistkits blog, where you can find more articles, polls, and quizzes on landscape and gardening related topics. Be sure to grab your own copy of an E-book when you visit!