Tea Grounds as Mulch? Yea or nae?

[colonel]

Gooood Moooorning Gardeners!

Just wanted to know if using [U]Tea Grounds[U] as mulch is a good idea or not?

I also may use comfrey leaves or straw.

Any advice re beneficial mulch materials would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, stay safe and enjoy the bank holiday growing.

Over and out. Colonel

P.s Any advice regarding making comfrey tea for fertiliser would also be most welcome. Thanks

[nickdub]

From memory, I think the spent tea leaves are vaguely acidic so might work well for some acid loving plants. I do remember the bed where we used to empty our tea pot when I was a boy always being full of worms - good place for bait when going fishing :-)

[SarrissUK]

How much tea do you drink? LOL

I use my tea bags and coffee grounds, but I do't have enough to use them as a mulch really, but they all go in the compost

[broadway]

I also pop mine in the compost caddy, I stand in a dream once a fortnight splitting the bags and decanting the leaves.

[Bren In Pots]

My tea leaves go into the compost bin along with the coffee grounds.

[Mark_Riga]

Straw would be OK, comfrey also but I think it is too precious for just using as a mulch.
On utube, this gives some info.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5BspGhgNrk

What I do is cut the plant right down when it starts to flower and stuff it into a 200L waterbutt. Then fill it with water. Don't bother chopping it up at all. It rots down very quickly and when nice and smelly, use it to feed my plants. I tend to use it mainly on tomatoes and in the greenhouse give each one about 10seconds with a watering can followed with a couple of litres of water about every 3rd watering.
I once gave my son some squash plants and I thought I was giving them a treat before he took them by watering with some comfrey but I don't think he was impressed as his car stank for a few weeks afterwards.

[jackarmy]

I regularly use comfrey as a mulch, but i do have one hell of a lot of it, too much maybe.

[colonel]

Tea grounds raise acidity? Good for blueberries?

Thanks for all your advice guys. Much appreciated.

So if tea grounds will cause more acidity will this be good for something like a blueberry bush? I have two that I think I will stick in the ground in the front garden which gets lots of sun.
If I put some tea grounds in the ground with them will this help the plant?

Thanks again

[toomanytommytoes]

Blueberries need a soil pH of 4.5-5.5. Do you know the pH of your soil? If your soil isn't acidic, and especially if it's alkaline, you'd be better off planting them in ericaceous compost. Tea leaves as a mulch won't be acidic enough to bring the soil pH down.

Our soil is 'slightly acid' which probably means it has a pH between 6 and 6.5, so still too high for blueberries. For our two plants, I dug 2x2ft planting holes, about a spade deep, and backfilled with half peat and half soil plus sulphur chips. At the moment the plants are looking really healthy, hopefully yearly applications of sulphur chips and occasionally ericaceous feed will be enough to keep the pH in the optimum range.

[Squingy]

I have used tea emptied from tea bags to mulch established potted roses which were doing poorly and it did wonders for them. It may be because they were pruned after some neglect (landlord) though.