Tips: Coffee Gardening
Tips, Tricks
Video by Melissa McGinnis - http://twitter.com/trashtalkin Blog by Joe Laur - http://twitter.com/GreenopolisJoe Boy, Melissa must drink enough coffee to keep a whole neighborhood of Starbucks gong. Or at least she finds enough uses for grounds that throwing them away should never be an option. Theres a lot of interesting things in this video post- from the ant protection that coffee grounds produce to the help for the bloomin flowers. According to Doug Greens Simple Gifts Farm, theres solid evidence that green gardeners should be reusing this waste to resource stream in the garden. The site states that research on slugs and caffeine shows that concentrations of caffeine as low as .01 % reduces feeding by slugs . But those concentrations dont kill. It takes 1-2% caffeine solutions to kill slugs as effectively as the chemicals normally used, but at that strength it can damage plant leaves. Coffee grounds contain about 05% caffeine. So coffee grounds will not kill slugs but can deter them from your plants. Nice. Chases them away without slug murder. How very vegan. And apparently coffee grounds make great mulch, particularly for plants that like acidic soils. The site states that they are acidic with a pH of between 3.0 and 5.0 making them superb for mulching rhododendrons, azalea and other acid loving plants. And you can scatter them thinly all over the rest of your garden as organic soil amendments. You need to add inches of the stuff to change the pH. As Melissa state, worms love coffee grounds and gardeners and gardens love worms! The coffee grounds are food source for the little crawly guys. Doug Green recommends tossing the grounds out daily- dont save them, as they can mold. And they compost very well in your regular compost bin. They are similar to grass clippings in their carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. On top of that the microbes that do the composting will turn the coffee from acidic to a neutral pH. Wont make your compost more acidic. You can read more here. By the way, if youre lucky enough to have a coffee roaster company nearby, like our good friend and Greenopolis Partner Deans Beans, they will often give you the bean chaff the hulls left from the roasting process- make great smelling mulch on flower beds and walkways! So enjoy that cup of Joe in your breakfast garden, and toss the grounds right on the ground. This is one of the few products that you really can throw away!
Comments
-
Well done, some great tips in this video!
-
very helpful video, thank you
-
1:19 money shot, just made some extra fertilizer
-
Does it matter if I use regular or decaf coffee grounds? Doe it matter if it is used grounds or unused grounds?
-
If you attack ants with coffee be careful not to smash the jar.
-
Thanks for the great tips! Especially for deterring ants - we have tried salt and it worked for a while but not brilliantly so will try this :) looking forward to keeping slugs away from my herbs too! :D Kate x
-
i heard coffee grounds start to mold, not good, what else i heard was you can make coffee from ground coffee beans and delute the coffee liquid i part coffee 4 parts water and water the plants this way to bring the ph down as well as being good for acid loving plants
-
having fun while teaching is a good combo - good tip about the ants
-
Pee on the ants, they will never come back
-
I like your pink toe nails.
-
i want a wife like you
-
Why would you want to move the ants away from your plants or flowers? Ants are an important part of the food web. They feed on the aphids and greenfly that damage your plants and flowers and are therefore very helpful to the grower.
-
she's cute...and bubbly.....
-
Damn... Talk about a yield from the garden.
-
Came for the info....left when the pseudo-hipster chat arrived with a princess crown and superfluous cleavage.
-
Fun, cute, and informative. I love it. We have an ant problem here in So Cal, and i will start attacking them with coffee.
-
I don't drink coffee and don't have any coffee grounds but try other things. Old flour for instance. Worms seem to like that. The problem is you have to be careful unless you want to look like a snowman. Tea leaves is also good.
-
Is she... wearing a princess crown?
-
Oh, I just did a google and saw how Starbucks started the used coffee grounds program about 6 years ago - to recycle their grounds. Good for our ground . . .
-
When you mean picking up from starbucks, can you get used coffee grounds from them?
1m 59sLength in seconds