Coffee, and Expresso grounds in the food garden.

[jaotguy]

Tim Hortons has been doing this for years on "the rock" .... giving the coffee grounds away to farmers ....

 

[Bird]

I never put coffee filters in my garden, but I do know that newspaper, and even cardboard, decompose very quickly. When I was raising rabbits, I discovered that the best nest material was shredded newspaper. At that time, I had a shredder that was not a "cross cut" so it just made long, narrow strips; excellent nest material for rabbits. And then I tilled the old nest material into the garden.

 

[Pepsiboy]

Here in the PNW, (home of Starbucks), there is an Expresso stand on almost every corner. I live outside of a town of 2500 people, and there are 6 or more of them. I have a local restaurant that gives me a 5 gallon bucket of grounds and filters every other day, that I add to compost, but an expresso stand gave me 5-600 pounds a week ago, and I spread them around the food plot. As an experiment, I laid down a 1 inch thick layer of the grounds next to a row of Onions, they grew more than 4 inches of greens over the next row that did not get the grounds. The tomatoes that I spread them around look like the have been hit with a dose of grow juice. I expect to be able to get 60 or more pounds a week of the expresso grounds from here on out to help my soil. And no my veggies are not getting jerky from the cafene.

We have been putting our coffee grounds and egg shells into the garden for YEARS. I think they help to keep our heavy clay soil more loose. The egg shells help add natural calcium to the soil. Not to worry about getting tied up in the tiller. Our 40" Kubota tiller just grinds them up with the other vegetation we turn back into the garden. I, Like you, have a deal going with one of the local coffee shops for their grounds and filters. (Free stuff is ALWAYS good.) Good luck with the garden.

 

[bullbreaker]

Yes also been putting coffee in/on plants, flowers and vegetables for years with great results. The Desert Roses espeicially seem to thrive on it.

 

[rswyan]

We put coffee grounds around our "Endless Summer" hydrangea to amend the soil and to get the plant to produce blue blooms, rather than pink.

 

[8N Ren]

Just to add to this, we have a stainless steel bucket in the kitchen. Darn near everything organic goes in and all I do is turn a shovels worth of dirt and dump the bucket, then cover with said dirt to keep the smell away. Our soil is great and has only improved since the summer of 2011 when we put it in.

 

[vtsnowedin]

My Grandmother who lived through the great depression used to sell fish worms to fishermen. She kept them in a cinder block tub about five feet wide by ten feet long by four feet deep in her basement. She would feed them the coffee grounds and some of the other kitchen waste just added to the top of the dirt. As long as she fed and watered them regularly she had plenty to sell.

 

[charlz]

Starbucks has the 'Grounds for your Garden' program but it seems most of the ones I have been into don't follow that too closely as the bin/bucket is always empty. I get a package now and then and dump it in my kitchen garden. Not sure how much difference it has made in the soil being a small amount but it sure smells good for a while I would love to be able to get it in the 100's of pound quantities.

 

[oosik]

I've found that coffee grounds do not help my soil one bit!! Had a soil analysis many years ago and our soil is VERY acid. Coffee grounds tend to be quite acid also. Our soil is black as india ink from all the pine needles and needs a tremendous amount of lime. I think it would help if our soil had some clay. Unfortunately, my meager amount of ground go in the garbage.

 

[Pete Judd]

Got another 300 pounds of expresso grounds today. Started a route, every 2-3 days to get the expresso grounds and two restaurants to get the grounds with the filters. Talking to the restaurants about all the other waste I can compost and that they pay to have to hual away. BYW no slugs in the garden.