used coffee and tea good for your garden

[Brock Bailey]

old used coffee and tea is good to put in your compost bin or in your garden...I used to use it mixed with dirt and my earth worms in a large garbage pail with lid did the trick and with siol on top worked well and the worms turned it into real good soil and used it mixed with other dirt for growing veg and tomato plants and pepper plants and added abit of sand too..

It works real good to recycle and starbucks also offers free used coffee grounds for your garden and they have a brochure about using coffee grounds for your garden and the benifits...

Check it out

Brock R Bailey Victoria BC Canada [e-mail]

[Stephen M. Henning]

Works well for rhododendrons and azalea also:

Van Veen Nursery in Portland, Oregon, has been using coffee grinds from Starbucks Coffee House for about 18 months. They have been very satisfied with the results. 1) it helps to aerate their clay soil. 2) slugs don't like to go through. (so you can see we have both mixed in and put on top.)  It does help to make the soil more acidic. But it does not replace fertilizer.

They suspect that by making the soil more acidic you are actually helping the uptake of magnesium. This in turn helps iron uptake and that helps to make the plant green. So really you are starting a process not fertilizing. Combine the coffee with horse mature and organic mulch and watch the amount of fertilizer you use decrease dramatically. As for how we apply it, when the plant is dry and just before it rains we sprinkle it on and around. The rain takes it from there. Otherwise we incorporate into the new beds. No exact rate just cover the top and work it in. (courtesy of Vicki at Van Veen Nursery)

[ScratchMonkey]

I toss my grounds in an old dishwashing powder tub. When the tub is full, I use it to fill the ruts in the empty field across the road. Is it ok to use with seedlings in starting planters?

[followups set]

[Doug Kanter]

Coffee grounds are quite acidic. Don't get excited when I say that a higher than normal acidity level in soil may help ward off some diseases FOR A SHORT TIME, because in the long run, most of the seeds you grow probably won't like the pH. Or, maybe in the short run. Just don't do it.

[Danny O'Keefe]

If you use the grounds as a contribution to your composting bin they'll help break down the other elements more quickly (worms love them) and you'll balance out the ph much better. They'll still be effective for repelling slugs and they are very beneficial to the soil. We've been doing this in our garden for quite a few years now and the soil and plants are thriving. You can use the grounds straight to build rings around plants that are getting hit by slugs but they work better over the long run as a composting element and as an amendment with mulch.

D. O'Keefe

[Steve Ackman]

Yes.

from

"Roasted coffee is fairly acidic, but it appears that almost all of the acid is water soluble and is extracted during brewing. Used grounds have essentially neutral pH, although the coffee beverage produced is rather acidic."

Personally, I've used coffee grounds as both compost and direct soil amendment. It works well either way.

[TOM KAN PA]

Wouldn't "used" coffee or tea be urine?