Canachris
Well-Known Member
has anyone tried adding coffee grounds to your soil ? someone sent me a link a while back and I can't find it . any info would be appreciated
Adding coffee grounds to the soil
- Thread starter Canachris
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You’d be much better off running coffee grounds through a compost pile or a worm bin. If your space is restricted you can do it in a Rubbermaid bin.
Working with containers is different than soil beds or the ground. There’s only so much we can fit into one and there needs to be a balance of what is in there. Adding stuff straight to our containers throws that balance off.
You could do it, but the benefits would be nothing compared to the effort, balancing, and clean up required. It’s much easier just to get a pound of composting worms, a bin, and just let them compost your stuff for you. Then you mix those worm castings 50/50 with some old soil and perlite and you can run almost any plant.
Or you just compost normally inside a bin and use that compost to amend your soil mixes.
Good question Chris!
Working with containers is different than soil beds or the ground. There’s only so much we can fit into one and there needs to be a balance of what is in there. Adding stuff straight to our containers throws that balance off.
You could do it, but the benefits would be nothing compared to the effort, balancing, and clean up required. It’s much easier just to get a pound of composting worms, a bin, and just let them compost your stuff for you. Then you mix those worm castings 50/50 with some old soil and perlite and you can run almost any plant.
Or you just compost normally inside a bin and use that compost to amend your soil mixes.
Good question Chris!
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- #3
Canachris
Well-Known Member
I don't have any space for a compost bin. and was trying to use the container as a Indoor compost bin, I won't be ready to use it for about six weeks. I've added the rejuvenating nutes the soil company recommend and was just of things I had on hand to add. Keffka, thanks for the response
Working in a container is a good fix. I would recommend maybe a 15 or 20 gallon container if you can afford the space, and you can use that as a composting container or working bin like you’re doing.
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- #5
Canachris
Well-Known Member
I'm using a 15 gallon container of once used Coast of Maine Stonington blend , it was a bit pricey so if I can get 2 or 3 grows out it the price is worth it. the rebuilding nutes we're a bit pricey too
Hey cc, so this is one I've heard good and bad things about. Yes coffee "CAN" offer benefits for the garden if fully processed. It can provide a bit of Nitrogen along with tiny amounts of Phosphorus and Potassium. Unfortunately Just putting spent coffee grounds in the soil can cause an array of issues..... The caffeine that remains in the grounds after you brew your cup remains far to high for any plant to cope with, leading to slowed growth and "micro organisms tying up readily available nitrogen converting the caffiene." If used in new grows I have read it can also hault or slow the germination process and kill seedling.
here's a small article I came across a couple years back when I asked this question.
"This popular soil additive may not be the best thing for your plants.
August 01, 2019
There's nothing like eating veggies you grew in your own garden. But gardening is a big investment: there's the daily watering, the careful pest control, and the delicate process of keeping the soil chemistry just right. The internet is full of ways you can make gardening easier and cheaper, but some methods are too good to be true. No matter what the gardening blogs tell you, leave the spent coffee grounds alone. They're bad news for your garden.
Photo by: Shutterstock
Shutterstock
Common Grounds
We get it: It feels good to do something with your morning coffee waste besides throwing it in the garbage. The gardeners who write about it aren't wrong when they say it's full of soil-friendly nutrients like nitrogen, which is essential for plant growth. Generally, adding organic material to the soil is good for your garden, since bacteria will feed on it and break it down into more nutrients the plants can use.
But even coffee-ground gardening advocates include a few words of warning. Coffee grounds are highly acidic, they note, so they should be reserved for acid-loving plants like azaleas and blueberries. And if your soil is already high in nitrogen, the extra boost from coffee grounds could stunt the growth of fruits and flowers. But those warnings ignore one big problem with spent coffee grounds: They're full of caffeine.
Not the Buzz You're Looking For
To understand why caffeine is bad for your garden, you need to understand why certain plants produce caffeine in the first place. You probably know that both coffee and chocolate contain caffeine, even though they come from entirely different plants. Those plants aren't even related — they evolved the ability to produce caffeine independently, something biologists call "convergent evolution." When two species evolve the same trait completely on their own, it's a sign that the trait probably has a very useful purpose. For caffeine, that purpose is competition: It kills off any plants in the surrounding area.
While you might think you squeezed every last drop of caffeine out of those grounds in your french press, think again: A study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that there can be up to 8 milligrams of caffeine per gram of used coffee grounds, depending on how long the grounds steep in the water. That means that after you brew a shot of espresso, the grounds still contain about as much caffeine as a cup of tea.
That's why adding coffee grounds to your garden is the last thing you want to do. A 2016 study in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening said it all in the title: "Applying spent coffee grounds directly to urban agriculture soils greatly reduces plant growth." That was true even when they composted the coffee grounds with other organic waste — something experts recommend in the first place. Another study inadvertently found that compost spiked with coffee grounds kills earthworms. And remember how adding organic material attracts helpful bacteria? Well, coffee grounds also have antibacterial properties. Bye bye, little buggies.
In an article for the Guardian where he did his own informal gardening experiment with coffee grounds, botanist James Wong concludes, "I love a quirky piece of hort advice, and some are repeated so often you assume they are true, but often they call them old wives' tales for a reason." Drink your coffee all you want (eat something first, please), but keep those grounds away from your garden."
I'm sure there is a bunch of articles out there that will say yes, no, maybe, and idk.... And for that reason I've steered clear.....which is cks because I drink alottttttt of coffee and it would be readily available.... But I can't take the chance of an issue I created that would be hard to pull from soil.
but In my personal opinion most of the nutes you'll be using would hold much more value in nutrition with positive benefits over any value that the grounds could ever provide... The time to prepare, handle, compost it to a possible viable additive is to long for a chance it won't help at all.
regardless I wish you luck with your garden chris.
here's a small article I came across a couple years back when I asked this question.
"This popular soil additive may not be the best thing for your plants.
August 01, 2019
There's nothing like eating veggies you grew in your own garden. But gardening is a big investment: there's the daily watering, the careful pest control, and the delicate process of keeping the soil chemistry just right. The internet is full of ways you can make gardening easier and cheaper, but some methods are too good to be true. No matter what the gardening blogs tell you, leave the spent coffee grounds alone. They're bad news for your garden.
Photo by: Shutterstock
Shutterstock
Common Grounds
We get it: It feels good to do something with your morning coffee waste besides throwing it in the garbage. The gardeners who write about it aren't wrong when they say it's full of soil-friendly nutrients like nitrogen, which is essential for plant growth. Generally, adding organic material to the soil is good for your garden, since bacteria will feed on it and break it down into more nutrients the plants can use.
But even coffee-ground gardening advocates include a few words of warning. Coffee grounds are highly acidic, they note, so they should be reserved for acid-loving plants like azaleas and blueberries. And if your soil is already high in nitrogen, the extra boost from coffee grounds could stunt the growth of fruits and flowers. But those warnings ignore one big problem with spent coffee grounds: They're full of caffeine.
Not the Buzz You're Looking For
To understand why caffeine is bad for your garden, you need to understand why certain plants produce caffeine in the first place. You probably know that both coffee and chocolate contain caffeine, even though they come from entirely different plants. Those plants aren't even related — they evolved the ability to produce caffeine independently, something biologists call "convergent evolution." When two species evolve the same trait completely on their own, it's a sign that the trait probably has a very useful purpose. For caffeine, that purpose is competition: It kills off any plants in the surrounding area.
While you might think you squeezed every last drop of caffeine out of those grounds in your french press, think again: A study in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that there can be up to 8 milligrams of caffeine per gram of used coffee grounds, depending on how long the grounds steep in the water. That means that after you brew a shot of espresso, the grounds still contain about as much caffeine as a cup of tea.
That's why adding coffee grounds to your garden is the last thing you want to do. A 2016 study in the journal Urban Forestry & Urban Greening said it all in the title: "Applying spent coffee grounds directly to urban agriculture soils greatly reduces plant growth." That was true even when they composted the coffee grounds with other organic waste — something experts recommend in the first place. Another study inadvertently found that compost spiked with coffee grounds kills earthworms. And remember how adding organic material attracts helpful bacteria? Well, coffee grounds also have antibacterial properties. Bye bye, little buggies.
In an article for the Guardian where he did his own informal gardening experiment with coffee grounds, botanist James Wong concludes, "I love a quirky piece of hort advice, and some are repeated so often you assume they are true, but often they call them old wives' tales for a reason." Drink your coffee all you want (eat something first, please), but keep those grounds away from your garden."
I'm sure there is a bunch of articles out there that will say yes, no, maybe, and idk.... And for that reason I've steered clear.....which is cks because I drink alottttttt of coffee and it would be readily available.... But I can't take the chance of an issue I created that would be hard to pull from soil.
but In my personal opinion most of the nutes you'll be using would hold much more value in nutrition with positive benefits over any value that the grounds could ever provide... The time to prepare, handle, compost it to a possible viable additive is to long for a chance it won't help at all.
regardless I wish you luck with your garden chris.
- Thread starter
- #7
Canachris
Well-Known Member
Thanks so much Hap , that's exactly the info I was looking for. Google ing and YouTube has so many conflicting articles it's hard to tell what end is up, the coffee grounds are probably better off in the land fill
Yes that was my take away after asking here with conflicting answers across the board, and then reading the same conflicting things online.....safer to just not take the chance .
And glad I could help give insight
Based on what I came across looking up "how long does it take to decompose used coffee grounds" the grounds will not be composted for 3 to 6 months. Once completely composted their NPK numbers are approx 2-0.6-0.6 so the real benefit is from the Nitrogen that becomes available months from now.
Another thing that has to be considered is how much of the used grounds is added to the soil mix. I am thinking it would be in the 1 to 2 cup amount added to 10 to 15 gallons of soil. As @Keffka brings up in msg #2 there is the balance between what is added and what is already in the soil mix.
You would probably be better off using any product Coast of Maine has developed for rebuilding their soil in between growing sessions along with any fertilizers they have.
I toss used coffee grounds over the outdoor vegetable and flower gardens and let nature take care of them. Or if the garden is well underway and no spot is available I have just tossed them out over the lawn. A lot better use of them than the landfill
.
I'm using a 15 gallon container of once used Coast of Maine Stonington blend , it was a bit pricey so if I can get 2 or 3 grows out it the price is worth it. the rebuilding nutes we're a bit pricey too
The coast of Maine products are very good quality. I’ve used all of them. You can reuse their soil an infinite amount of times as long as you’re reamending as needed and have a dependable water source that you know the content of. The Stonington blend is in my recycled soil and I’m currently using the plant food and fish bone meal. I setup a worm farm so I can just start running everything through that and won’t really need anything else any more.
I feed the worms my amendments then just mix their castings with used soil and perlite and I’m done. It only takes up an 18”x18” space too so it’s really efficient in the home. My 15 gallon pot is bigger than the worm farm since the worm farm stacks upward.
Based on what I came across looking up "how long does it take to decompose used coffee grounds" the grounds will not be composted for 3 to 6 months. Once completely composted their NPK numbers are approx 2-0.6-0.6 so the real benefit is from the Nitrogen that becomes available months from now.
Another thing that has to be considered is how much of the used grounds is added to the soil mix. I am thinking it would be in the 1 to 2 cup amount added to 10 to 15 gallons of soil. As @Keffka brings up in msg #2 there is the balance between what is added and what is already in the soil mix.
You would probably be better off using any product Coast of Maine has developed for rebuilding their soil in between growing sessions along with any fertilizers they have.
I toss used coffee grounds over the outdoor vegetable and flower gardens and let nature take care of them. Or if the garden is well underway and no spot is available I have just tossed them out over the lawn. A lot better use of them than the landfill
Yep, sounds right. It’s why I would just compost it. You’ll get more benefits in an equivalent amount of time versus just using them as is. If it’s already going to take 6 months to become available you may as well just pile it into the compost or worm bin, then balance in your containers is no longer a threat.
If it’s just an outdoor garden though it rarely hurts to have long term N and organic matter is always a plus
