You may have heard about teabag composting, but suppose you do not drink tea, and coffee is more your style. Have you wondered about composting coffee grounds or how to use leftover coffee in your garden? You can use coffee grounds in compost, and they do help the plants you grow around your home!
When you use coffee in the garden, you will reap many benefits. Coffee is a great source of nitrogen, an element that plants need to grow healthy and strong. Rather than using commercial fertilizers, you can use coffee grounds. While unused coffee grounds are acidic, most of the acid is dissolved into the coffee that you drink, so used coffee grounds are pH neutral.
If you sprinkle used coffee grounds around your plants, you may repel slugs and similar pests since they hate crawling around on them. Some gardeners report that critters like cats and rabbits are repelled by used coffee grounds, too. Recycling coffee grounds by tossing them on the ground in the garden also helps suppress weeds and inhibit certain fungi.
Coffee Compost
You can add used coffee grounds directly to your compost pile and treat it exactly as you do any other green compost material. Don’t forget to add a similar amount of brown compostable material to the pile.
However, you can also compost the coffee grounds directly on the dirt around the plants. You can do this by sprinkling the used coffee grounds around your plants and then covering the coffee grounds with a layer of shredded leaves or mulch. The coffee grounds will break down and add wonderful nitrogen to the soil.
Have you ever asked yourself: Are coffee filters composting? They actually are! Simply bury used coffee filters in the compost pile, and they will break down. You may want to shred them to help accelerate the composting process.
Is Leftover Coffee Good For Plants?
If you are in the habit of making a whole pot of coffee, and you don’t always drink it, you don’t have to pour it down the sink. We can tell you how to use leftover coffee. You can use it to water your plants, which will give them nitrogen, a component of many commercial fertilizers.
You only should do this for plants like blueberries, azaleas, and rhododendrons, which crave acidic soil. If your plants begin to have yellow leaves, you should probably stop pouring coffee on them. You may have made the soil too acidic. You should start watering down the coffee before you pour it on the plants if this happens.
What to Do With Expired Coffee Grounds
Suppose time has gotten away from you, and you accidentally allowed some coffee grounds to go out of date. While using older coffee grounds won’t hurt you, the coffee will likely be less tasty. Rather than just tossing the coffee grounds in the trash, you can use them in the compost.
If you have a compost pile, add the expired grounds to the pile, or sprinkle them around the roots of your plants.
Composting Coffee Pods
No one wants to add to the trash growing in landfills, but Keurig® coffee machines are so convenient. If you have ever wondered if coffee pods were compostable, you may be surprised that the answer is yes! But first, you have to know how to compost coffee pods.
Unfortunately, you can’t just bury the K-cups in the garden and be done with it. However, you can separate the various components of the pod into recyclable and compostable pieces with a device like Recycle A Cup. The foil cap and the plastic cup can be saved for recycling, and then you can easily compost coffee filters and coffee grounds.
Recycle A Cup lets you enjoy your daily cup of coffee and take care of the Earth all at the same time. Contact us today for more information!
