coffee grounds

My wife drinks a lot of coffee and it seems such a waste to throw all those grounds away. Are they any good for outdoor plants like eggshells are, or indoor plants too, for that matter. My brother in CA. puts them in his compost pile but I'm not interested in that messy adventure. Any suggestions for the previously mentioned subject?

Coffee grounds can definitely be beneficial--lots of people put coffee grounds on top of the soil around their plants. No need to compost them, you can just dump them straight into the garden if you want to.

Hey Frog, I thought you might be interested in reading up here:

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/792542/

Hope it helps, and some of it is quite funny, too! :)

Its better to compost them first.
If you keep dumping ground on the same spot you will change the pH of the soil in that location. Coffee grounds are very acidic.

Paul

Yep, I killed a Petunia with too much, not knowing what I was doing at the time. :(

Paul:

how much, or how long, would it take to actually change the pH?

I was told to put them around my azalaes and rhododendrons due to soil here in Utah doesn't have enough acid in it.
I put a few good handfuls around plants, we'll see if it helps.

There are many factors that would come into play.

Coffee grounds are not like fertilizers in that the pH would vary by the brand and amount applied.'the existing pH and amount of rain etc. Just dumping around the base of the plant is very inexact.
I just dump mine into the compost bin and topdress my plants with finished compost.

As Mistygardener mentioned above putting CG on an alkaline loving plant would probably kill it.

To see exactly where you are at get a soil test.

I now have a compost pile that we put them on, so I don't have a replay of the Petunia. Cause I LOVE Petunias! I got a bunch of VERY nice and EXPENSIVE plants for a buck each at Lowe's the other day. :) The pots they came in are worth a LOT more than the buck I spent, and the flowers are even still alive, and now in my new green house. :)

Coffee grounds may be acidic, but they're not a very strong acid, so it would take quite a lot of them to significantly change your soil pH. It's probably better to avoid using them on plants that require an alkaline pH just to be safe, but for the vast majority of plants they're not going to change your soil pH enough to matter. If your soil's too alkaline to grow acid loving plants, coffee grounds alone are probably not going to be enough to fix that situation, and for the majority of plants that are happy in a pH range around neutral they should continue to be happy with the addition of some coffee grounds.

Ok, I need to learn to not believe everything I hear! lol
Good to research plant conditions and care, but sometimes guess you just have to plant it, love it, and care for it and hope it grows!

mistygardener,
I have really been happy with lowes, for one reason, they actually clearance their sad plants. Disturbs me when plants are almost dead and they still want full price.

This fall they clearanced out the whole nursery 75% percent off! I got some panda bamboo that is usually $25.00 for only $5.00!
Thats another thing I love about gardening, the bargains are exciting!

If you constantly dump coffee ground into the same location it will make the soild more acidic in THAT area.

Paul

frog-
I have been putting my coffee grounds on my beds for years. We happen to keep a small galvanized bucket on the floor in the kitchen and every morning we smack the reusable coffee filter on the edge of of bucket and collect the grounds, when the bucket is full I take it out back and spread it on one of the beds. The next time the bucket is full I pick another bed to spread the grounds around. You might be surprised just how many grounds you collect in a week's time. I happen to know people who go to their local coffee house and pick up grounds from them 1-2x/wk, so I don't know if I would be too hung up on ph if you are only spreading around your own grounds. Only if you are consistently putting a lot of grounds in the very same spot for extended periods of time...if you know you have a plant that likes a ph of 7 or higher I would only put a little bit grounds around those plants once in a while and concentrate on your other plants and shrubs. Personally, I think the worms love the coffee grounds.
Shadyfolks

I collect my grounds in a covered can as well, and when it is full I give it to blueberries, rhodies, camelias, and certain callas. They seem to like it, and makes me think I'm helping them along in some way, probably making their spots more acidic and to their liking. Worms definately love them!

I'll put a few once in a while on Rhodies and my mountain pieris.
Just put a whole bunch of fallen leaves around my deodora and katsura, hope to give them a nice blanket of leaves for winter....

I keep seeing the fact that worms love the coffee grounds. Would the wiggly little creatures turn the acidity of the coffee into something less agressive to nutriant loving plants and their increased presence would seem to me a benifit to the roots and the dirt paths they take underground. Hmmmmm! More coffee grounds=more worms=healthier plants=happier gardener. I'm liking it!!!

Frog
I have been using coffee grounds for about 3 years and stopped purchasing mulch. A friend convinced me to blow the leaves into my beds and leave them (I have a woodland garden)...they are my mulch. I believe my beds are thriving now because of these two changes I have made since 2004. I have not put down any fertilizer in 06 & 07. these changes have saved me time and money and my garden is loving it.

So are you collecting your coffee grounds yet?

You would have to drop coffee grounds by the dump truck load in the same spot for a long time to make a difference in the ph. It take pellitized lime 6 months to change the ph by 1 percent. sheesh!

Yes Shadyfolks, I've started collecting coffee grounds even with my wife's support. She suggested baking them in the oven to dry them out for easier storage until the snow melts and I can apply them to the plants that are interested in a coffee break. Thanks for the info. Have a great winter!

Drying them in the oven is a great idea. I was storing mine in a canister and I was worried about them being wet for so long. I think I will try that!

We set the temp. of the oven at 250 degrees for a 1/2 hour, coffee grounds spread out evenly on a foiled cookie sheet. Worked really well and WOW, what an aroma thru out the house!

Great idea!

I'm lazy, I just line my bucket with a couple of plastic grocery bags and when they are full I throw them in the garage and when there is a break in the snow I will grab the bags and run around spreading the grounds. they get only slightly moldy, not enough that I'm going to worry about it.

Using the coffee grounds is effective in the snow cover, too?

As long as you are getting the grounds on the main pile, the worms keep on working.

As it rains/snows the organic items break down slowly and nutrients seep into the soil, over time you are improving the texture of the soil and nutrient values. Just because I put my coffee grounds down on Monday, doesn't mean that on Tuesday the soil is immediately improved, it takes time to work into the soil. By spring my soil is a little better because of it and now my plants are ready to grow it.

I guess I could wait until spring but it gives me an excuse to walk around the garden and bond ;o)

Shadyfolks, you my kinda gal. Besides it's good for you both in mind and body.

i was wondering about the idea of putting the coffee on the plants now when they are going dormant--i guess you answered my question--i put most grounds in the compost but wondered if throwing them around plants now was wasting the coffee grounds--such a delema?! coffee in the compost or around the plants?!

You can do both. The coffee grounds will attract worms and make your soil around your plants better.

thanks--think i will do both

planolinda,
doccat5 is right about doing both! Either way it's not going into the landfill. We do have a few places to throw yard waste so none of that is going in the trash. My problem is that I don't compost kitchen scraps (no good excuse) Their are just the two of us and i fear that we don't generate enough kitchen scraps to keep a compost pile going and every time I read something about composting it gets so complicated (or at least they make it seem like that). I started flinging kitchen scraps over the hill in the Ivy until my dog would find it & started dragging it all back up to the house....my DH says...where's the dog finding this stuff...oops,so I had to stop that :o) I just have these visions that it's going to turn to slim before it turns to compost and be of value.....But all of this is off topic to this thread,can you tell I'm whining? These are poor excuses, I know, but hey, at least I am recycling my coffee grounds right?

Shady

Shady,
Ha ha, sounds like your dog is happy, maybe not so much your soil.
I feel the same way, I tried to find a simple way of composting, thought the same thing and just throw some coffee grounds out occasionally and buy compost at home depot.

I can relate, there are only 2 of us here also, but I have a 5 gal bucket with a lid I keep under the skin. Coffee grounds, egg shells, veggie peelings, "growin" items out of the back of the fridge go in the bucket. Either DH or I empty it at least once a day. You'd be surprised how much good "garbage" you're generating. Just dump it in the middle of the bin and rinse out the bucket.
Here's a picture of my compost bins, not real great, but I was in a bit of a hurry as it was starting to rain.

doccat5,
You have two huge bins! How long have you been composting? Did you start with large bins?

You know I'm going to start a new thread in this forum -I hate when folks get off topic of the original thread.

Look for my new thread....http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/794725/
Shady

This message was edited Dec 2, 2007 7:11 PM