Used Coffee grounds

[thebahamiangardener]

here in Nassau there's a starbucks in the mall and no one uses used grounds for gardening. , they always use miracle grow. Which is better form me. Evry time I walk out, I go lugging a fifty pound black bag that is laden with the smell of cofee. I just thre w the entire bage full in the compost and now its smoking.

[opabinia51]

Coffee grounds have a very low C:N ratio and will compost very hot. You should be able to feel the heat. Be careful to add a lot of browns to your compost (leaves, cocoa bean hulls, straw, etc.) to balance off all that nitrogen and turn regularly or your compost will smell.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Opa, just how low is that C:N? I know they are nitrogen intense, but the darker color always made me think they must be pretty high in carbon (I have been wrong before... ).

So TBG, be sure to mix lots of browns to keep the fungal side going; I remember lots of pine on Grand Bahama so needles would work (unfortunately my only experience with your beautiful country, but I saw it all from West End to McClean's Town. Your country is lovely but the people are even better )

HG

[David Taylor]

I started a new compost pile on the 10th, chicken manure, horse manure, coffee grounds, then just a ton of wood chips (you know how bad they are), pine needles, leaves, what I call chicken debris,chicken feathers, uneaten chicken feed, a ton of bread that's falling my way, and shredded paper. It took two days to get to 160 degrees (Fahrenheit), and is now just hovering above 150. I haven't turned it, I figure don't mess with success. It smells wonderful, no ammonia, no methane.

[top_dollar_bread]

Opa, just how low is that C:N? I know they are nitrogen intense, but the darker color always made me think they must be pretty high in carbon (I have been wrong before... ).

So TBG, be sure to mix lots of browns to keep the fungal side going; I remember lots of pine on Grand Bahama so needles would work (unfortunately my only experience with your beautiful country, but I saw it all from West End to McClean's Town. Your country is lovely but the people are even better )

HG

I have read that most used grounds have a C:N ratio of 20-1 and I have also read that some grounds can have a ratio of 11-1.
here's some intestine links that I believe are good reads
[url=https://www.puyallup.wsu.edu/~Linda%20Chalker-Scott/Horticultural%20Myths_files/Myths/Coffee%20grounds.pdf]myth, miracles... or marketing[/url] by Linda Chalker-Scott, Ph.D.
MasterGardener WSU editor Extension Urban Horticulturist and Associate Professor
and the [url=https://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/compost.asp]starbucks composting grounds for your garden link[/url]

I started a new compost pile on the 10th, chicken manure, horse manure, coffee grounds, then just a ton of wood chips (you know how bad they are), pine needles, leaves, what I call chicken debris,chicken feathers, uneaten chicken feed, a ton of bread that's falling my way, and shredded paper. It took two days to get to 160 degrees (Fahrenheit), and is now just hovering above 150. I haven't turned it, I figure don't mess with success. It smells wonderful, no ammonia, no methane.

sounds like every thing is running smoothly, I too don't turn my compost when its heating up & running smooth but when it starts to cool, I turn..
I get a slight smell of ammonia when I turn but it goes away quick
happy composting

[The Helpful Gardener]

Yeah guys, that waiting thing is not standard commercial procedure; the new mantra out there is more turns early. Some are turning several times a day early on, daily in the second week, and turning over commercial winrows eight feet wide and tall in a matter of weeks not evn a month. The ammonia smell is anaerobic exhaust fumes (probably some alcohol odors you aren't quite getting as well) and THAT means you just killed a bunch of our good guys.

Turns=O2=bacterial AND fungal culture, which is where we want to be; the whole idea here is supporting Mother Nature's march to fungally dominant soil (away from weeds and grasses, which like bacterial). Fungus is the FIRST thing to bite it when we go anaerobic. We want to get to a BALANCED F:B soil profile and that means NOT favoring bacteria, which do o.k. on their own. SO not too much manure OR coffee grounds; low carbon high nitrogen favors bacteria...

Now I know you guys don't have a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak2EB66cWto]Scarab compost turner[/url]in your back pocket, and turning is hard work, but more is better unless we are trying for a fungal compost, in which case the coffee grounds and chicken poop are right out, and so is turning for the most part, but THAT's a different story and not what most homeowners are shooting for anyway...

David you have some very high nitrogen inputs, but that balances with some of the hardest to compost carbons (pine needles and feathers), so you should be fine. But to quote the Byrds, Turn, Turn, Turn...

HG

[rot]

..

The mushrooms appearing in my slow as you on a two year cycle bins must mean I'm doing something right. I've also noticed that with the mushrooms I'm getting a lot more reduction. That works for me. I'm in a digestion mode these days more than production.

Along with the poop and the coffee grounds went a lot chipped up sticks. The very bottom 4 to 6 inches is entirely carbons.

In my slow pallet bins I add every couple of weeks or so - poop, shredded paper, leaves and grass clippings. Grass clippings on the outside and on top and everything else in the middle. When I first started out this method I would fill it up 6 months and then just water for the next year or so. Worked out great, worm city, no sifting but the bark chips lingered.

When I started getting the mushroom activity, I found I could keep filling for a longer stretch because the volume would reduce so much. The last one I topped I fed for 10 or 11 months and the current, taller one will be a year in just a few weeks.

I monitored the temperature a couple of times of the new batches I would add and if I kept up with the watering, I would get 130 F for a week. Peak was about 140 F. That should be enough to cook the contents. I guess I'm adding about 9 cu ft at a time.

I'm about to apply the last one. Depending on how it comes out I will think about adding more carbons. Mine tend to be nitrogen rich I think. I may do so anyways because I'm liking the effect of mulching with grass clippings.

..

[David Taylor]

The manager for the Starbucks that comes up with the largest pile of grounds for me asked me to take a picture of me dumping the grounds into my garden, so he can post it on their community board. I figure I'll do him one better and have my adorable daughter in her full gardening regalia pose dumping coffee grounds in the new compost bin I'm starting today, and maybe some in the SFG.

[Gozz]

After hearing about how great coffee grounds are, I decided to ask a friend (who works at Coffee Bean), to get me some.
As I walked in with about a 2 gallon jug, she pulls out a huge trashcan and gave me something that weighed about 50 pounds.
I can't say I'm not happy but I'm a new gardener and would like some advice on if I can use the coffee grounds on a very small pomegranate tree I've acquired.
The tree itself is a little over 2 inches, when is a good time to use the coffee? Should it be mixed into the soil or just sprinkled on top and watered? How much should I use?

I can take pictures if you need, but I have all this coffee ground and I want to use it.
Thanks everyone.

[rot]

..

My mistrials with a few young trees has taught me to just make sure they are protected from being squashed and some water and they do fine. The pomegranates will be hard to kill. They may even look dead but come back. My first one, the first thing I ever potted, died a couple of times. I call him Larry after Lazarus.

My young ones will loose leaves in the winter but they come back in spring.

Larry lived in a series of pots over the years. After about maybe 4 years I put him in the ground and he was about 3 feet tall. I threw in some coffee grounds just to stimulate the worms. At the most about 10 lbs got mixed in as I planted the tree. I put in more compost than anything after dirt.

When planting a tree I usually throw in some coffee grounds but I count on compost mixed with dirt.

Use the coffee grounds else where. You can add some when planting or potting. You can mix into your compost bin. I would recommend just mulching some beds and then mulch something on top of that. Coffee grounds as a mulch will crust over but a mulch on top of that mitigates the effect. Check back later in a couple of weeks or so and you'll find lots of worms in your coffee ground layer. I like to let the worms work things into the soil for me. I'm lazy.

You probably really want to wander over to the garden side to find out how to care for your pomegranate. I should probably do the same.

..

[applestar]

For your itty bitty tree, which I'm assuming is in a pot, I think the best bet would be to put a couple of tablespoonsful on the surface of the soil and lightly scratch in with a plastic fork (I reuse plastic forks by keeping them stationed everywhere I have potted plants).

Why don't you take this opportunity to start a compost pile if you don't have one? Mix in equal volume of fall leaves or straw (if you have some) or shredded paper or other browns (check out the sticky at to top of this forum).

Another way to use this particular bag of goodies is to scatter them around other plants you have around the garden or in pots. If you have slug problems, coffee grounds are supposed to either repel them or kill them.

Try not to let the coffee grounds fall on healthy leaves -- shake or hose off if they do. If left on the leaves, especially in the sun, they cause the leaves to "burn" and turn brown.

[The Helpful Gardener]

I'm with AS; composting those will move the nitrogen into a friendlier form, besides fifty pounds will just bury your tree. Start the compost; shredded paper would be a great "brown" to add to your "green" (high nitrogen) coffee grounds, and just as easy to put hands on, right? Every office I know of shreds paper now...

HG

[Gozz]

Thank you guys you have been very helpful.

I wasn't going to use all 50 pounds on my 2 inch tree, I was just saying I had a lot!

I'll put a few tablespoons on the surface and scratch it in with the fork.
Let this experiment commence!

[Sang]

I have 3 camelias and 2 azaleas that were planted last fall. Can I put some coffee grounds on them now? Or wait till Spring? How much can I use?

Thanks!
Sang.

[rot]

..

Ok for the azaleas. Can't speak for camellias.

Coffee grounds crust over when you mulch with them. To mitigate that I'll mulch grass clippings on top of the coffee grounds. Some places the squirrels scratch 'em up just fine for me.

You'll have worms in the coffee ground layer by spring. Worms dig that stuff.

..

[rainbowgardener]

Camellias are also acid loving like azaleas and will be fine with the coffee grounds. Put some down now and some more in spring. Scratch it (or trowel it) lightly in to the ground or mulch over it to keep from crusting over as rot noted.

[applestar]

I stopped at a couple of nearby Starbucks to ask about used coffee grounds. I'd given up on them before because every time I went, their response was that somebody had just picked them up.

Well, THIS time, the answer was that people used to come by all the time during the summer but they haven't been lately, and the manager apologized that they haven't been bagging them, not expecting them to be picked up. She said if I call the day before, she'll have them ready for me, so told her I'll be back the next day. K'ching! At the other store, they also said the same thing! Lively pick-up during the summer, NOBODY picking them up now. K'ching, K'ching! Needless to say, I also took what they had at both stores.

My latest project/experiment: "Espresso" Oyster Mushrooms -- oyster mushroom spawn in sawdust that is mixed with used coffee grounds to run the mycelium and grow the mushrooms. I'll start a new thread about it soon.

[The Helpful Gardener]

Looking forward to that. AS; have been contemplating mushroom growing for next year. But after the recent rash of tree removal by neighbors, I have a lot more sky than I did; finding enough shade for shrooms might be suddenly hard!

Funny how folks think of composting as a "garden" activity and stop when "gardening" stops (while for some of us neither really stops, they just shifts gears...)

HG

[rainbowgardener]

Well for me composting never stops, but gardening pretty much stops from mid Nov to mid Jan (unless you count looking through seed catalogs and putting in my order as "gardening" ). I've thought about working to get a heated greenhouse or something to keep gardening those last two months, but decided I don't mind having a little down time, break from it. Start the garden year over with the baby seedlings with renewed energy, having missed it for awhile.


(of course a couple dozen containers full of houseplants and other stuff I brought in for the winter, doesn't count as gardening! )

[The Helpful Gardener]

Ahh, but you are wrong, my friend. They do count... and a fine way to to explore the true symbiotic relationship with plants. You share heat and water and CO2; the plant gives back O2 minus a great deal of indoor pollution (some plants better than others, but all to some degree). A pretty good trade-off, especially in winter, and it keeps your hand in until outdoor gardeneing begins...

Nasa knows about this stuff; betcha they want some plants for the station.[url=https://www.zone10.com/nasa-study-house-plants-clean-air.html]Check out their top ten pollution collectors[/url] maybe you have one of these in the home?

Get more...

HG

[rainbowgardener]

Oh too cool! Great link HG! I've been reading science fiction since I was a kid, so I knew the space station was going to have to have plants as part of the life support/on board ecosystem, but it's so exciting to hear that NASA now knows it too!

[The Helpful Gardener]

Houseplants would like coffee compost too...

HG

[applestar]

I *used* to have houseplants -- many from the NASA 10 list, but they've been mostly outsted because of the "two dozen" that have to come inside when the cold weather hits. With the coming of the frost, I now have 37 various sized containers of plants crowding the downstairs windows alone, and that's not including the 5 Oyster mushroom pots or the Shiitake spawn block, and those are the plants that prefer cooler winter temperatures. I won't go upstairs to count the warmer temperature plants in the upstairs windows. Only "houseplants" left at my house are the African violets, who will quietly occupy the NE facing window and still provide flushes of pretty flowers.

I'm slowly panicking over the logistics for seed starting come February.

You're right about switching gears. There are still lots to do out in the garden. I've also added indoor vermicomposting as well as the mushroom growing, both of which are benefitting from the influx of the used coffee grounds

[gixxerific]

Just got back from Starbucks, got me 2 of their packaged bags ad 2 trash bags full of grounds, yippee. Now my garden will be nutrient rich and smell good.

[Bloody Boots]

Don't concentrate on just your coffeehouses. Your local gas stations brew fresh coffee about every 90 minutes. You usually have to bring them a container, but I've never had a problem getting a 5 gallon bucket full of grounds from each of my local gas stations every week.

And if you ask them nicely, they will usually let you take their old newspapers too.

[huskie]

I get them from the office as well! I love'm

[SkyKero]

-- tomrrow I will go get the coffee grounds from my local QT .. ..
He said the 5gallon will be full by tomorrow and I just took it today! ..

INCREDIBLE ... yay!!!

[2cents]

Too much UCG will spoil the soil.
I've added over two inches in an area of the garden and it would not produce.
My suggestion is Keep the amount under 1/2 inch and turn it in to the soil.

[rainbowgardener]

Or just keep throwing it in your compost pile. I've started bringing the coffee grounds home from work, to balance out all the fall leaves in my pile...

[joshbuchan]

wow just reading this has realy helped me out loads! I was planing on feeding my worms on a good 50% used coffee and 50% kitchen waste, but I was just woundering were I would find that much used coffee with out buying it and turning myself into a coffe holick! I do like to sleep at night (wrighting message at 00:50am in the morning....)
I am going to have a ask around 2moz and going to ask my family if they would save them for me, thanks.

[sixshooter]

My friend work at a coffee shop and gave me about 15 lbs of UNUSED coffee grounds. Some kind of fudge flavored coffee. Is this ok to put into my compost?

[rot]

..

Food safe = compost safe

..

[Jake L.]

At my new house that we are going to be moving into, we have about a 10'x10'x10' pile of leaves. Could I add some coffee grounds to the pile of leaves to accelerate the process of making humus?