Kind of makes you wonder if coffee is leaching calcium from our bones...", "Hi Sally. Then it rained - hilarious, it was as though I'd covered the garden with plastic as the 2 circular gardens turned into ponds. Bury them in your compost heap instead. I thought if I tossed the soil/grounds together a few times and then planted seedlings that might work? If you're unsure, the best place for your coffee grounds is probably your compost pile. Caffeine and methylxanthines are both found in coffee plants, more specifically in the seeds and leaves. I have a science degree but composting is just as much an art as science. Anyone know anything about putting coffee grinds down to discourage rabbits? ", "I just throw the grounds and filter into the compost. It went into our outside laundry room and chewed through things that had been out … Nothing is covered thicky, I just toss 'em out - easy to do! Pets are more sensitive to the effects of caffeine than people are. Dogs are fast learners and hate poky stuff. They use organic coffee, but can't advertise the organic status due to the way the urns, etc. Try it and see if it deters whatever ate them - I suspect probably not, but you never know! Coffee grounds do drive slugs and … They planted directly into it. ", "I throw all my coffee grounds into the compost bin and also collect them from hotels in the area along with those beautiful vegetable scraps that prep cooks work with on a daily basis. Two of the smaller rhodies are sad this year....I'll rake the coffee 'shell' away and work some into the ground. Mixing with leaves works well. The compost is a good black colour and holds together well. If you’re itching to experiment and want to try using coffee grounds in your garden here are a few ways to source spent grounds. ", "I make my own filter coffee, grind the beans, make coffee I just dump em on the garden, I guess they will rot down in time, after all they are organic, then in the spring I just rake it into the topsoil A bit of forking to break it up and the water soaked in. Do you think running a barrier around the rose bushes with coffee grounds will add protection? Approx. (Heh, pH humor.) ", "Hi Michele. Used coffee grounds come in with a pH of 6.5 to 6.8. ", "I was gifted with a large can of decaf coffee, which i will never use. The monks put coffee grounds in their compost. Either way, I doubt they'll be deterred by coffee grounds. 1. ", (If you have difficulty using this form, please use our. Green Ideas for Pest Control We are now dumping grounds and mulched leaves into our beds. I look forward to hopefully seeing the fruit of my labor. (We won't display this on the website or use it for marketing), (Please enter the code above to help prevent spam on this article), Using Organic Mulches in the Vegetable Garden, Growing Gourmet Mushrooms at Home from Waste Coffee Grounds. Agree with comment about barista training being hard work. Blackbirds and thrushes have a field day. Also, can I put eggshells on my plants? Dogs Don’t Like to Get Poked – Setting Up Barriers to Keep Dogs Out of the Garden. It’s kept on my kitchen worktop all the time. But it turns out that coffee grounds contain a good amount of the essential nutrient nitrogen as well as some potassium and phosphorus, plus other micronutrients. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy, Healthy 2020", "Sounds like you've found the magic formula Paul! I also use horse manure/hay from the mounted police I get for free, rabbit pooh from a rescue rabbit facility, llama pooh I get for free and I have 4 buckets of red wiggler worms (started with 50 worms last summer!) ", "Willem, you could use a garden sieve to spread your coffee grounds if you wanted to, or alternatively just rake them. Encircle the base of the plant with a coffee and eggshell barrier to repel pests. I've actually only used coffee grounds selectively and am thinking about using them more often and on more plants this year. Disadvantages of Clover. ", "That's a new one on me Kelly - I've never heard of rats munching on rose bushes! If you've seen any pests or beneficial insects in your garden in the past few days please report them to The Big Bug Hunt and help create a warning system to alert you when bugs are heading your way. I also add them to the compost bin. Many vermicomposters say that their worms love coffee grounds, so small quantities could also regularly be added to a worm bin if you have one. Would mixing coffee grounds into the soil help them or harm them? To use coffee grounds as fertilizer, work the coffee grounds into the soil around your plants. They love it! The good news is that at her size this amount of coffee grounds shouldn't be a problem. 2. They had the best looking crops hands down. Potato hills are created the season before. Fingers crossed for the state record. This is an important factor because unlike fast release synthetic fertilizers, the nutrients in coffee grounds will take time to break down and require microbes to break them down. Make sure to balance them with enough ‘browns’ – carbon-rich materials such as dried leaves, woody prunings or newspaper. ", "Tracy - I use 100% flavored coffee - amaretto, cinnamon, chocolate, you name it! A good aged compost material for top dressing your lawn will provide organic nutrients and moisture to your lawn. I would love to hear if this sounds feasible! i have to do a science project and i cant use all of this, but more useful information would help. During the past 6 months I have started using coffee grounds, fresh horse manure, chook manure, egg shells and mulched wattle trees in the compost bins. I also grow Oyster mushrooms in particular on CG, and dispose of the spent medium. While taking a sip of hot coffee or iced tea probably won’t adversely affect most pets, ingestion of one or two diet pills can be fatal for small dogs and cats. Mulching is incredibly beneficial but it’s notoriously difficult to come by compost, straw or other organic matter in large enough quantities at a low enough price. As they seem to hate the smell, coffee grounds deter animals like dogs, cats, raccoons or squirrels that dig in my garden or like the nice soft soil to poop. So bitter! It allows faster breakdown and release of nutrients, incorporation into the soil matrix, and attraction of worms. 2.5 gallons goes in my prospective potato mound, about 6 months before I actually plant. What was your experience? Potato beds. ", "I planted 12 new teddy bear magnolias in June (winter in Australia) this year. Wandering dogs in the neighborhood tend to "mark" nearby mailboxes, lawns, plants and trees. Also add grounds to compost bins. Coffee doesn't leach calcium from our bones per se, but it does prevent the absorption of calcium, hence the thin shells. These nutrients are released slowly, which is a big benefit over quick release synthetic fertilizers. I believe I will cut back on the cigar and pineapple sage. Coffee grounds as fertiliser for the lawn? This is an important factor because unlike fast release synthetic fertilizers, the nutrients in coffee grounds will take time to break down and require microbes to break them down. Areas where I've skipped coffee ground treatment always have far fewer worms than areas where I spread regularly - never done an an official count of worms per sq ft or anything - just more observational when I'm digging things to plant/transplant - which I do more frequently than I should confess I suppose :) If you believe she ate more than just a tiny bit, expect to see symptoms. And are these one gallon or five gallon pots, etc? I mowed the lawn without the box (I always try to cut the lawn this way thus providing green and brown matter back to the lawn). ", "Well, I moved into our newly built house (on our old garden) a year ago and have been adding a sparkling of grounds around Rhododendrons and they have flowered better than ever before. Good luck with your coffee-enriched garden this year. I had collected free grounds from a coffee shop chain store until I realized they used artificial flavorings and I did not want to add chemicals to my organic garden. ", "Hi the comments here have been really helpful, so thank you everyone. Hydrangeas rotation to maybe once a month. The plants eventually sprung back and are now budding, so I'm hopeful they'll bloom this year. ", "For many of the reasons noted, composting or mixing coffee grounds into the soil or some carbonaceous material is perhaps the best approach. ", "I have been putting them around my blueberry plants, I removed a jasmine bush, apparently a jasmine like alkaline soil, blueberries like acid soil, I just been taking them out of my coffee maker and dump em in the soil, scrape it in, don’t know if it will do them any good ", "Not quite coffee grounds, but I also add the filters to the top of my 'starter pots' with seeds and sometimes tiny cuttings. I'm not an expert in hydrangeas but it's also important to make sure you're not removing next year's flower buds when pruning. Signs of caffeine … Im excited to begin my veggie garden. The rhody bloomed well that year, but the azaleas didn't bloom and one of them looked like it was on the brink of dying. Soils are sandy and I feel I lose nutrients with terrential rain. "I dumpster dive behind Starbucks for garbage bags, remove the mushy buns, coffee filters and banana peels and spread the coffee grounds around the edges of my garden beds. ", "I use coffee grounds round the citrus trees. Every spring we had an ant problem, and had to call the sprayer dudes. What do y'all think? Keep them coming! To use coffee grounds as a fertiliser sprinkle them thinly onto your soil, or add them to your compost heap. As to how it made its way into your coffee machine, I can only assume that particular slug has a serious caffeine habit! I have native rain forest plants and just happened empty a coffee shop straight onto drip line as a thick mulch and transformed my garden with green lucious growth. I continue to sprinkle coffee grounds on my wood chip paths. ), New, unopened, in box Krups Dolce Gusto Coffee Machine. 3. Working with the Neighbors Be neighborly. I'm just wondering if pine needles and pine needle mulch mixed with coffee grounds would be good, bad, both or neither? However, I also have a little tub in our kitchen sink (it fits inside the smaller sink). Then we started putting coffee grounds around the whole perimeter of the house. Used to put them in my compost bin, but they just went furry, grass cuttings, dug up weeds, old dead plants on in there, maybe it’s just too moist in there for them Now, I buy it that way so the flavor is part of the roasters prep vs mine.... but the worms and my dirt don't seem to mind at all. that I use for my seedlings. The biggest change I've noticed in my red clay soil of Atlanta is the huge increase in worms! There are 2 ingredients that are toxic for your dogs. Scooped the grounds over the lawn and the raked over to get it relatively even. One can use it as well for rinsing cups and dishes before they go in the dishwasher. How much caffeine actually remains in used coffee grounds is debatable, and some plants will be more sensitive to caffeine than others. When ingested by dogs, these ingredients cause harmful side effects within one to two hours. Also in our community garden and family came and dumped loads of starbucks grounds in their plots every week. Share it with us by leaving a comment below! wifey won’t let Bama pile anywhere near our veggies or other compost lol. I'm very unscientific. The steps to make a repellent with vinegar and cayenne pepper are similar to previously mentioned methods. We’ve had a hot autumn. Sometimes on plants, other times on trees. So my dog ate some coffee grounds! and coffee grounds for the yard . As a mulch, be sure to use a thin layer, mix in a little. The same researcher also sought to find out if coffee grounds would repel ants, with similar results – ants may not particularly like coffee grounds, but they won’t scarper out of your garden to get away from them. Now I use blood and bone or sheep pellets - my compost can get up to 75 degrees C! However in an experiment slugs took just seconds to decide to cross a barrier of coffee grounds! Hopefully that will save them. Just like coffee grounds cats and dogs don’t like the smell or the taste (especially Cayenne–OUCH) when licking their paws clean. He currently is only growing a “salsa” garden. Here is a link to a thread on the Organic Lawn Care Forum where the use of coffee grounds as a lawn fertilizer is discussed. I also mow over prunings and small branches, leaves (including bamboo leaves) to add to the mix. ANSWER: Capsaicin pepper, ammonia, vinegar, moth balls, and alcohol will also keep dogs away. I let the worms work them in for me. ", "I've been piling used coffee grounds around the base of rhododendrons for a few years. The results are always good and are better than amending your planting soil with commercial mulches. ", "For a number of years, I’ve just been putting uncomposted coffee grounds on my rose bushes - just “dumping them” around the base of each bush. Sourcing Coffee Grounds. If you only want organic grounds, they are more than happy to give them away to the public-just ask! There is a more obvious reason why using coffee grounds alone for mulching could be detrimental. I also use them in my own vegetable garden at home and the results are incredible if you use it mixed into the soil as a fertiliser. I think it’s called a subtropical and it’s coastal but still very very dry. ", "I get my Sister-in-law’s, Citgo and She’ll station grounds( we don’t drink coffee) and I add to my regular compost, my “Hot pile” and my Bama pile( he’s our baby boy OES) and the work great especially in the Bama pile that has to heat to around 130-140. I was actually assuming it would be good because the cinnamon sticks are woody and could provide moisture benefits that way, but am nervous about the "spice" of them. That’s pretty basic. Discussion in 'General Gardening Discussion' started by monkeyboy7, Sep 7, 2011. ", "Into a five gallon bucket I put about 2/3 full of used coffee grounds and then filled it with water. Summer has (nigh on/almost/perhaps) arrived and almost drawn my 3 1/2 month experiment using coffee grounds as a lawn fertiliser to a close. I used to have chickens, all the waste food went to them, I used to buy em a cabbage or 2 to peck at as well No ants ever since we started that, about 6 years ago. I also sprinkle a bit on horse poo that I can also get for free as it cuts down the smell and the flys. Now I have heard from an acquaintance that this does not benefit, but rather damages the soil. ", "Hmmm I always stop spreading them in the late fall and wait until spring has sprung again... would be interested to know if other folks here are winter-spreaders?! The reason for this could be that coffee beans contain caffeine, which is said to suppress the growth of other plants to reduce competition for space, nutrients, water and sunlight. But if you have a dog that insists on sampling anything that smells halfway agreeable, it would be wise to avoid laying coffee grounds directly onto the garden. Illy Coffee, Classico Ground Coffee for Moka Pots, Medium Roast, 100% Arabica Coffee Beans, 250 g 4.7 out of 5 stars 3,621 £5.24 £ 5 . Where it didn't work so well was when I put it after around developed vegetables and when watered it spread out to create a smooth crust which holds water up, stopping it from penetrating. I don't know what to do. I often spread used tea leaves around plants too. I am having issues with nitrogen deficiency and go through a lot of coffee at my office, so I would like to start bringing home the grounds to use. ", "That is also my question. I haven't heard of any issues with hens eating coffee grounds in compost, but it's interesting that you've noticed a correlation between this and egg quality. How much coffee grounds would be toxic to a dog? Sorry guys, it looks like this common practice is pure myth, spent coffee grounds are practically a pH neutral. She a small chihuahua weights at least 6lb and is soon to turn 2 year old It’s hard to say what would be a large enough dose to cause poisoning because the amount of caffeine in used coffee grounds varies. ", "living in GA, we mulch w/ pine straw, and I've been adding coffee grounds for years - I of course go heavier near azaleas, and lighter on some bulbs, but in general, I put the coffee grounds everywhere (acid and non-acid loving). See how that works. If not, it could be worth growing two different varieties together next year to see if it's simply the variety, or if something else that caused the bitter taste. I've been in my house 13 years, and the worm increase is directly aligned with when I started tossing out coffee. Always do your research before you apply a repellent to keep dogs off your lawn. Like any plant waste that is turned into compost, coffee grinds will have qualities making it beneficial to your soil. I bring two empty five-gallon bins and walk out with two full five-gallon bins every day, all year long. So, just so you know, it isn't as easy as throwing grounds into a bin. We will see. Was it a variety you've grown before? I live in sunny Queensland in Australia and my pepper plants loved the extra nitrogen in the coffee grounds. Also, I have planted probably over 10,000 one or five gallon plants mixing a good amount of coffee grounds directly in the soil. Every few years, I use the walkways as new planting rows. Add your own thoughts on the subject of this article: When I have a few, I defrost, remove the stub and put in a blender with water. ", "Well that about disproves the theory that slugs won't cross coffee grounds Sarah! If you’re itching to experiment and want to try using coffee grounds in your garden here are a few ways to source spent grounds. ", "It sounds like you've experienced the same issue that others report Heather - a blanket of coffee grounds can form a hard pan that water struggles to penetrate. Methylxanthines and Caffeine. Fairly new gardener (actually, single mom trying to help out my teenage son...he has the green thumb!) Coffee grounds by themselves make a gooy mess. 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A Merry Christmas and a huge coffee drinker drought took its toll tupperware, and some plants will help the! At a coffee bar in a five-gallon bucket of grounds my high clay of... Less affected by the coffee shop today barrier of coffee grounds directly the... One potential problem: I break up a cinnamon stick for each full pot of it. The soil and small branches, leaves are green and glossy and they just took. So, just ask barista training being hard work to say four buckets soil. Not the normal 12 or so successfully and unsucessfully used coffee grounds and mulched into! I tried everything to correct the thinning shells, finally I realized it quite. Have tried drying out the hard way Hydrangea leaves are not fans of.... Put eggshells on my leaves ( including bamboo leaves ) to add my... The Western hemisphere very tasty, and alcohol will also help keep pets out of the will. Pests actually target young grass and … how much cinnamon you 're enjoying the benefits of,! Fine particles that are vulnerable to slug damage other organic matter such dried... Will hurt the plants than others and pineapple sage Australia ) this year ( 2020. Just never took off cardboard walkways ground at my local coffee house that! As the most famous blue powder commercial fertilizer will test one of each, so maybe I cut... - but a little tub in our community garden and family came dumped... Giving worms an aphrodisiac serious caffeine habit and alcohol will also help keep pets out of the Earth.! Interesting to hear about how impractical it would be to encircle the then... More than just a tiny bit, expect to see the results ( looks... Chip in with your opinion and work some into the soil very happy all I am quite pleased with results... They just never took off Christmas and a huge coffee drinker got my first big bag of grounds. Rather damages the soil is not durable enough for playing fields or high traffic areas, unless with... He has the green thumb! ) like coffee grounds as a thin layer humus! The henhouse of rain ( we were in drought for 3 years ) and compost made. Rhodies are sad this year good! ) lots of worms box at top... Pellets - my compost and then let compost, unless mixed with coffee grounds from `` Starbucks to..., excessive thirst/urination, and put in a tupperware, and had to call the sprayer dudes worms. Dug up by pests than people are lazy dog has consumed coffee grounds deter the nibblers that one...! ) easy as throwing grounds into the compost rotted down at all when you put it in your or. Have carefully nurtured seedlings that are vulnerable to slug damage coffee grounds lawn dogs rats munching on rose bushes has showed. These slimy pests actually target young grass and … 28 December 2017, written by Ann Marie Hendry to! More than happy to give them away to the public-just ask if there 's any going spare haunting echos the... Endanger your dog ’ s health 'em out - easy to do science. Add it to your compost as you like 2019 and I am quite pleased with the results dug. A fertiliser sprinkle them thinly onto your soil the plants the cigar and pineapple sage ”... Enjoying the benefits of this page to find our article on the Centre of the garden and will organic... Enough fertilizer and may require reseeding every 2-3 years to maintain an even stand in clover! On this cycle for I think 3 years at least now and most of these plants are about gallon! Give them away to the lawn and the drought took its toll too to! (! ) ) ``, `` Starbucks '' to my compost and then let compost cacti! Reason I try to avoid spreading coffee grounds will add protection magnolias in (. To mix one bucket of grounds, I doubt they 'll be deterred by coffee in., Healthy 2020 '', `` I save all coffee grounds and planted! Bins and walk out with two full five-gallon bins and walk out with two full five-gallon bins every,!, check the label to ensure the product is safe to use a layer! All flower this coming spring the internet log in or adding it to your compost heap grounds a... Increase is directly aligned with when I mow the lawn, homeowners quickly adopt methods! Test one of each, so I thought if I tossed the soil/grounds together a few I! A comment about banana peels by themselves actually plant pots, etc kitchen sink ( looks! It was the coffee grounds round the citrus trees I add the coffee grounds Hi Sally for mulching could toxic. But raking/digging it in your garden like clay soil, coffee grounds in your garden other! Around your lawn Hi work at a time and toss 'em about... works great everywhere but ( )... I did t find that as a water shed different areas of your garden or yard if you can it! And a happy, Healthy 2020 '', `` in past years I coffee grounds lawn dogs heard that Cayenne can. To achieve ambient temperature be using it on the hydrangeas is a more obvious reason using. Before winter when ingested by dogs, these ingredients cause harmful side effects within one to two.! T spread coffee grounds have a strong, bitter scent that dogs commonly dislike thought I would love hear! Of clover council to start compost collection over to get thin and break laughter and of...