Coffee grounds

[YellowRose]

So my starbucks has a big bucket that says grounds for your garden and they give away the old coffee grounds for people to use in their yards. Are coffee grounds good for flower beds?

Amber

[ICGardner]

From what I have read on other websites about organic gardening, coffee grounds are great for composting. Contrary to popular opinion, they aren't acidic, either. The website I got my info from says they should be counted as one of your "greens" and even encourages adding the filter to the compost site as well. Hope this helps!

[YellowRose]

Thanks I dont have a compost but can I just dump them straight in my garden?
Amber

[Mary Ann]

Coffee grounds do not need to be composted. I fling them across the beds and lawn.

[YellowRose]

Cool Thank you

Amber

[doublemom2]

I get a bag of coffee grounds at least once a week from Starbucks and just sprinkle it out wherever I need to deter cats from doing their business. It smells wonderful, the worms love it, and for at least a few days it smells strong enough to keep my neighbor's cats out of a particular area. I've used it in flower beds and directly in the veggie garden, as well as adding it into my compost pile if I was being lazy.

Have fun with it, it's free and a great addition to your garden.

Andi

[YellowRose]

I get a bag of coffee grounds at least once a week from Starbucks and just sprinkle it out wherever I need to deter cats from doing their business. It smells wonderful, the worms love it, and for at least a few days it smells strong enough to keep my neighbor's cats out of a particular area. I've used it in flower beds and directly in the veggie garden, as well as adding it into my compost pile if I was being lazy.

Have fun with it, it's free and a great addition to your garden.

Andi

My husband bought me a cappaccino machine for Christmas.. Its well used lol So I save up the grounds from that every morning and I put them on my flowers. I just need to get a better container to keep them in. Like I said, my cappaccino machine is well used lol

Amber

[Muddy fingernails]

Ah, yes, the benefits of urban living. No Starbucks anywhere in sight around here.
I collected coffee grounds from my own coffeemaker, but the stuff would mold in the container before I had a chance to use it in the garden.
So now I mulch with sheep wool.

Antje is Muddy fingernails

[Dovid]

Coffee grounds are great as a soil amendment. When worked into the soil or used as a mulch, they do not seem to break down that fast. This seems to be a plus given that their slow decomposition doesn't require you to compensate for the nitrogen taken by other materials that decompose more quickly. I agree that earthworms seem to appreciate them. You can use them with container-grown plants as well.

I had been told that scattering coffee grounds on a concrete patio near plants growing in containers would discourage slugs. I tried this but saw slug trails through the grounds the next day. It didn't seem to affect them one way or another.

You can use the coffee grounds to help fill in low spots in your lawn. You can skin back the exising sod, work the coffee grounds in with a shovel and then tamp the sod over.

I have tried composting coffee filters but I have not had that much luck with them. They usually don't break down that well the first time around, so they end up with the small twigs, etc., that go back into the next pile.

[VThosta/daylilylover]

I have tried composting coffee filters but I have not had that much luck with them

Thanks and welcome Dovid! You've just answered a question I had since the coffee grounds really do stick to the filter until they dry. I had been letting the grounds dry before using but started a lasagne bed lately and kept throwing in the grounds filters and all (and wondering what would happen). Guess I'll go back to letting them dry.

[JaneG]

I was at my local Borders bookstore last week and noticed they had boxes of coffee grounds stacked on the counter, free for the taking. Each box about the size of small shoebox.

I was wondering if they would mind if I took the whole stack!!

[Ginger]

Antje said:

So now I mulch with sheep wool

.



Need an explanation please?

Ginger

[Spider]

Hostas need sweaters of course!

[Muddy fingernails]

Ok, we are talking about raw, poopy fleece here, the part of the fleece we spinners call britch or tag wool. Usually it gets thrown out because of the aforementioned poop attached to the wool. So I take hands full of this and work it in round the plants. It's great for keeping slugs away - they hate slithering over wool. It's also an instant fertilizer (sheep poop with rain water, yummy). However, it looks sort of peculiar. Also, the wool is not good wherever you need to mow with a mower. That stuff will tangle up in any moving part of your machine.
But since I have the sheep wool anyway, it seems like a good distribution of natural resources.
I have had coffee ground in the soil now for a few months. It really improves the soil and makes it loftier and easier to work. The filters, however, take forever to break down. I finally picked them out and threw them away.

Antje is Muddy fingernails

[Dovid]

Thanks for the welcome!

I should mention that when you use coffee grounds as a mulch that they will form a crust as they dry out. When you water an area where the crust has formed you'll see water initially flowing over the surface (eventually, the crust becomes waterlogged and allows water through). This crusting does have the advantage of keeping the soil underneath from drying out as fast. When I see a crust has formed, I either leave it be or just scrape it into the top quarter inch of soil with a cultivator. Smaller weed seedlings have difficulty emerging through the crust, so you may find this an advantage to leaving the crust in place.

With regards to how fast coffee filters break down in the soil, I don't know. I do know that they survive 2 or 3 trips through the compost pile before they are broken down enough to go through a coarse screening. Since there are probably more bleached than non-bleached coffee filters sold, I thought that bleaching might be a factor. I am told that bleaching weakens the fibers, so the bleached coffee filters should break down faster.

[Violet_Skies]

I always tear up my wet coffee filters into approximately 2" chunks before tossing them in the pile...helps them break down a lot faster.

[dragonfly 64]

I put my wet coffee filters in the oven or on a plate on the counter until very dry and then put the grounds in ice cream buckets or big butter containers until spring and do the same with my egg shells. Bev

[fullofit]

If coffee grounds tend to be a deterent to cats per previous mentioned answer, would they also be a potential deterent to deer? No cats here, but deer, YES!, or maybe the deer, since they eat greenery, would like the odor of coffee?

[Gruntfuttock]

I thought they were supposed to be a deterrent for slugs and snails.

The bag says to use them within 24 hours. I waited 4 days until the weekend and found they were blue with mould inside the bag.