Using Coffee grounds

[ryanlmharris84]

Coffee stirrers!! Great idea!

And thank you for the other links too!

[out in the cold]

Absolutely, yes.

Our school allotment has been using coffee grinds as a mix in their compost bins and they have some lovely compost.

We also spread it around on our veggie patch at home as KCN works in a coffee shop and gets loads and loads

[Bigmallly]

I found them useful on acid loving plants so the Blueberries always had a good helping.

[roitelet]

They are supposed to be high in potash as well. The local Rose Grower and I fight over them from the local Bar!

[SkyChild]

Considering taking up drinking coffee just for the grounds XD

When I worked for Starbucks, the grounds I got to take away were a huge bonus, I usually mixed them in with my compost bin and got lovely brown crumbly stuff. Had no idea they were acidic though - but then my garden's quite acid anyway so my plants are probably all secretly acid-loving.

[Jay22]

Just got an email from C*#ta. Among other things they are offering coffee grounds free to pick up from their coffee shops for your garden. Thought I would let you know in case it is of interest!

[Potstubsdustbins]

Saves them having to pay to get rid of them and they get a second use.

[Dave NE]

For the last ten weeks I have been going to my local Sainsburys café and so far I have collected 332lbs of grounds, I have far more than I need and am giving them away on gumtree and freecycle etc but its better than landfill, cheers Dave

[rhonsal]

I also found that a sprinkling in certain areas of the garden helped deter cats from using it as a toilet - might be something to do with the strong smell! Or the cat i had bother with preferred tea !

[JMCKG]

Used coffee grounds

Anyone used old coffee grounds on their allotment? Reading conflicting views on Internet, although all say very good for composting.

[veggiechicken]

Previous threads - Merged with this thread!

[JMCKG]

Thanks, good read.

[janzbro]

I have started putting them in the compost heap.

[Bigmallly]

They are handy if you have any acid loving plants.

[Penellype]

I got a sack of coffee grounds from Costa coffee in September and put it round some newly planted mizuna as an experiment to see if it would deter slugs. The plants were protected by a net so any damage was unlikely to be caterpillars. Some other plants from the same 12-pack were planted into a self watering planter.

Both sets of plants suffered slug damage even though the base of the planter had copper tape round it - the leaves of the mizuna were touching the netting and the slugs got in this way.

The experiment is not a fair one in a lot of ways, and was not meant as any sort of a comparison - I simply had some mizuna left over and planted them out in a raised bed then thought I would try the coffee grounds as a slug deterrent. The salad planter, as expected, produced much bigger and better plants, which I have been eating on and off all winter. These are in the middle of the veg garden, where they get a bit of daylight. The plants in the raised bed, growing between an east facing fence and a south facing wall and therefore almost in the dark, look like this:



There are 5 plants in this picture - the one in the middle has been chewed to a stump and the others all have some degree of damage. Verdict: coffee grounds do NOT prevent slug damage.

On the plus side, they are still growing, and once they get a bit more light they should give me something to eat in spring.