Coffee Grounds and composting

[boodrow]

I've heard coffee grounds make a great fertilizer. Should they be used right away or made part of a compost??

Any advice, insight, experience is very much appreciated

[2cents]

All things in moderation is a good rule of thumb for coffee grounds.
They can be a nice soil amendment depending on what you will be planting. They are also a very good ingredient in the compost pile.
A few years ago, I had spread 2-6 inches of UCG in a section of my garden. It ruined the production in that section.
Too much of a good thing can sour the garden and create a sludge in the compost.

[rot]

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Used coffee grounds can be applied directly on the ground as a mulch. The problem being is they can form a crust the repels water. You can see the water bead up on the surface of a layer of coffee ground. One way to to counter that is to mulch on top of the coffee ground layer with something like grass clippings or a leaf mulch or something.

I once spread several hundred pounds of coffee grounds on a lawn which worked fine until I went to mow several weeks later. It choked the mower. After a while it settled into the ground. In that situation, spread it thinly so it breaks down sooner than later.

I've noticed worms very close to the surface after mulching with coffee grounds. Indeed, coffee grounds and newspaper seems to be a favorite medium for the vermicomposters.

I have not tried tilling coffee ground into the soil directly. Somebody else will need to speak to that path.

You can add coffee grounds to your compost but mix well. Because they tend to be such a fine grain, they tend to smother the composting process that needs air. In an extreme experiment, I mixed 50 percent coffee grounds with a bunch of other stuff in a bin. I ended up with a black gooey mess that took several months of turning and adding more feed stock to turn into a reasonable compost pile.

Since coffee grounds can be added directly to the soil with out 'burning' things, I add coffee grounds to the compost bin casually and don't worry if it composts or not.

In summary, mix well when adding to the compost bin and cover with mulch when using as a mulch.

to sense
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[Halfway]

Save that good expended java for some mighty fine compost if you have the time. Toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls, and coffee filters provide some serious browns to work with the grounds. A couple onion skins, celery ends, and watermelon rind and oooh lalala!

[vimaladevi]

It's best to prepare the coffee grounds through composting but can be used directly in smaller quantities so long as it doesn't change the soil PH too quickly. If coffee grounds are acidic (e.g. if stored for any period of time and allowed to become anaerobic) best to adjust PH with an alkaline mineral fertilizer such as wood ash, agricultural lime, etc.

Coffee grounds in the compost piles can be used much more liberally, without too much concern for PH and will feed the fungal component of a good biological soil.

If used in pots before being pre-composted, then best to use the fabric type pots for free gas exchange, or the increased micro-biological activity caused by the nutrients in the fresh coffee grounds can completely deprive the plants roots of oxygen. By pre-composting past the initial heat stage we can avoid this...

[Bobberman]

I like making small fenced in compost all around the upper part of the garden and add coffee grounds to all the compost! The rains wash the mix all through the garden at a slow rate! It works for me! My compost are about 2 by 2 feet with a chicken type wire around it! The pile of skins and table scraps seems to flatten out all the time. I place a little dirt on top once a week to keep it working under the soil!

[GreenPaul]

It's best to prepare the coffee grounds through composting but can be used directly in smaller quantities so long as it doesn't change the soil PH too quickly.

Yep, this is why you need to use them only in moderation, because they can easily ruin the PH of the soil.

As for me - I don't use them at all.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Coffee grounds to control wireworm.

https://thousandflower.blogspot.com/2008/11/smells-like-coffee.html

Joel planted lettuce seedlings in one of our hoophouses yesterday and the place smells like.....coffee? Last year's lettuce crop in the hoophouse was seriously damaged by wireworms. These are small, stiff, yellow grubs, the larva of the click beetle, that burrow into the stem of the plant and eat it out from the inside. All you see is a suddenly totally wilted, dying lettuce. If you pull it up and check the soil right around the stem you can sometimes find the culprit and dispatch it. We had been unable to find a successful organic solution for the pest until we talked to our friend who brought us all those potatoes a while back. Seems he was gathering up coffee grounds from a number of local restaurants as something to add humus to his soil. But as he grows several acres of potatoes he never had enough coffee grounds to treat the whole place. He noticed that he had no wireworm damage to his potatoes in the places where he had put the coffee grounds. Potatoes are another crop that we have had a lot of wireworm trouble with, so we are trying it, first on this lettuce bed and hopefully next spring on some potato plantings if we can gather up enough grounds by then.

I mentioned this about two years ago here at Helpful Gardener. I'm having good results.

Eric

[gixxerific]

I throw my grounds out the deck door into the garden everyday.

[rot]

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Coffee grounds aren't that acidic. The acid is in the coffee you drink through the brewing process.

The main problem with coffee grounds in composting is the smothing effect so don't layer but mix well.

The main problem with coffee grounds in the garden is the crusting so mulch on top of the coffee grounds.

to sense
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[toxcrusadr]

Agreed, there is very little acid in used coffee grounds. Furthermore, it is organic acids, which will themselves decompose as the grounds break down, and will not permanently change soil pH, which is based more on the underlying mineral fraction of the soil than the organic material. The resulting compost should be close to neutral, as much as any other compost.

[K2Dreamer]

[quote="boodrow"]I've heard coffee grounds make a great fertilizer. Should they be used right away or made part of a compost??

I usually put the used coffee grounds into our compost bins and in our watering cans and fill it with water which then makes "coffee", then I leave it over night so the water stands in the sun. The next day the plants get a sip of coffee

[ElizabethB]

I add coffee grounds with filter and tea bags minus the staple and string to my compost bin. Not directly to the soil.

Just my opinion.

LOL

[rot]

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I haven't had a problem with the string, staples or paper wrappers from tea bags in my compost. Lipton tea.

to sense
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[toxcrusadr]

String is cotton - compostable.
Staple is steel - instantly rusted away in the compost environment.
Paper is plant fiber - compostable.

The whole tea bag goes in at my house.

[Halfway]

coffee grounds continuously add nitrogen to my winter compost heap and the "wetter the better".

It is a great combination with general kitchen scraps and the leaves collected in the fall. Come February, those coffee grounds will be helping convert the shredded office paper as well. One happy little heated system!

"Toasting with a cup of steaming joe your way".

[WrightSam]

I include coffee ground in my compost together with kitchen scraps and I find it effective.

[rainbowgardener]

The worms in my worm bin also love the used coffee grounds! Maybe it perks them up a bit.

[BluesJay]

The worms in my worm bin also love the used coffee grounds! Maybe it perks them up a bit.

When I was a kid a neighbor taught me how to raise fishing worms on coffee grounds and corn meal. I've always added coffee grounds to my bins, great stuff.