![]() Since coffee grounds are already relatively nutritionally balanced and pH neutral, they act as a slow-release fertilizer that’s perfect for indoor plants. No need to give away perfectly good ready to use fertilizer! While hopefully, you have some sort of municipal food scrap composting program to take care of most of your food waste composting, it’s still a good idea to go out of your way to save coffee grounds to the side for your own home use. If you’re living in an apartment and have no practical way to compost at home, you can apply coffee grounds directly to houseplants. Applying Coffee Grounds Directly to Houseplants Holding some of our very own Vermont-raised worms. Be sure to wet the used coffee grounds thoroughly before adding them to a vermicomposter. According to Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm, the biggest issue is that coffee grounds can be too dry if left out. Not true.Ī bit of research and I learned that worms do great on used coffee grounds. We used to have a vermicomposting set up in our basement and I assumed that worms would need richer fodder, like carrot tops, melon rinds and more calorie intensive food. Just take a look at the $20 price tag on a small bag of worm castings at the garden center and you’ll realize these little guys make black gold! The process is much faster than regular composting, and the resulting worm castings are extra rich in nutrients. The organic material is fed to worms, which do most of the decomposition. While microbes do most of the work in a standard compost pile, vermicomposting is done indoors in small controlled containers. Vermicompost is a bit different than ordinary composting. This alone has me picking up several sacks of “grounds for your garden” every week… Scientists have actually studied the effect of coffee grounds on compost piles and found that compost piles that are 40% coffee grounds produced the least greenhouse gasses and made the highest quality compost ( Source). They usually have a C:N ratio of 20 or 25 to 1, and they compost beautifully without much fuss. Most kitchen waste is very high nitrogen, and you have to add brown material (dry leaves, sawdust, etc) to balance the pile and avoid a smelly compost pile.Ĭoffee grounds, on the other hand, are almost perfect. With good nutrient ratios, compost breaks down quickly without intense odors. ![]() Most experts recommend a carbon to nitrogen ratio of 25 or 30 to 1 for the best compost. Just like any other organic plant material, they decompose into nutrient-rich compost. I knew that coffee grounds were great in the compost. Most of the acid is removed when the coffee is made, and the leftover grounds are just slightly below a neutral pH (6.9).Ī neutral pH means they’re perfect for the garden! Composting Coffee Grounds The most obvious ways to use coffee grounds are in the garden.Ĭontrary to popular belief, used coffee grounds are not acidic. Uses for Coffee Grounds in the Garden & Outdoors #Thanks for uploading particle playground freeOur local grocery store has a Starbucks inside, and there are often 20+ pounds of coffee “ grounds for your garden” sacks just free for the taking. Now we actually go out of our way to pick up extra coffee grounds whenever we see them available. I did a bit of research and I was surprised to find literally dozens of ways to re-use old coffee grounds. We use our spent coffee grounds to fertilize houseplants, boost compost, provide traction on slippery walkways and we’ve even grown our own mushrooms in coffee grounds.Įven with all those uses, I started wondering if they couldn’t go to a higher purpose. Waste not, want not, and if you have a free resource in abundance, you might as well get the highest possible use from it. ![]() While they can always get a second life in the compost, I started looking for other uses for coffee grounds around the house. That amounts to a lot of used coffee grounds. My husband and I are serious coffee drinkers, and we go through about 2 pounds of coffee a week in our house. Once you’ve got a cup of coffee in hand, there are literally dozens of practical and useful ways to repurpose used coffee grounds. Used coffee grounds may not make a decent cup of coffee, but they’ve been there, done that. Don’t just dump those used coffee grounds in the trash! There are so many incredible uses for coffee grounds in the garden, around the house and in the kitchen. ![]()
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