Don’t throw those old coffee grounds away – your garden likes a morning pick-me-up too.
Besides prancing around in my cute Hunter rain boots, the next best thing I love about gardening, is that I know only natural products have gone into the soil to help those veggies grow. So I am always testing out old-wives tales, and tips I read online, about natural gardening, to see if they really work.
This week, I’ve been looking at putting my used coffee grounds to good use.
Mixing it in with compost
Coffee grounds have a high carbon to nitrogen ratio, so they are a good way to enrich your compost pile. Although they are naturally acidic, provided you have a good mixture of other rotting matter in your compost, microbes will help neutralize the acidity as the break the waste down.
Worms love coffee- slugs don’t
Worms love a good meal, spiced up with some coffee grounds, so if you mix a little in the soil you will be encouraging worms into your gardens. Sinced slugs can’t tolerate acidic pHs, they will be discouraged from joining the party.
Where to get your coffee grounds
You really don’t need a lot. Just the left overs from your daily dose of coffee will be fine, as too much can make the soil / compost too acidic.
If you are not a coffee drinker at home, you could ask neighbours, or check at your local coffee shop to see if they have a donation scheme.
While I was researching this article I found another post about using household waste in gardening, that mentioned grinding up egg shells to boost the calcium content of your soil. So it looks as if my next project will be investigating that further.
