Permaculture Blog #4 ½: Coffee grounds are awesome for the compost!
I was getting ready to prepare my morning coffee this morning and I was preparing my French press coffee maker as usual. When I got to it I realized I had forgotten to clean it out from yesterday. And, I realized I had forgotten to mention coffee grounds in my previous blog from yesterday. COFFEE GROUNDS are very good for your compost. In terms of composting it’s a good brown ingredient to layer into your compost.
Images taken by my iPhone
When I first started using coffee grounds for my compost several years ago I had asked the question, why used and not just ground coffee. Well, first off you’ll be wasting good coffee beans that could be used for a nice pot of java. Second, coffee grounds that are ground and unused are acidic. When you brew your coffee the acid and caffeine are leached from the grounds. So, used coffee beans are the wonderful item to use.
Used coffee grounds are neutral in the pH spectrum so it won’t affect plants that have an aversion to acidic soil. Some other key benefits for coffee grounds are that they are a good source of nitrogen for the plants. What you need to do is lightly mix it into the top layer of your garden. And as the coffee grounds decompose the nitrogen is released. This means drinking coffee is not just good for you, but also good for the garden!
Earthworms in composting is awesome as I mentioned previously in yesterday’s blog. Well, they love used coffee grounds. When I would place them in my previous compost bins the earthworms would go crazy in them. After a day or two I would move the coffee grounds around and I would see 4-5 earthworms wiggling in the grounds.
One thing that I do not recommend you do is just placing a layer on top of your soil. If it dries out it can create a crusty layer on top of your garden. I know this by experience.
I’ve added my coffee grounds to the compost in the picture below. I can already tell that the compost pile is compacting and doing it’s job. As it heats up I might add a little water so that moisture is still in the compost bin for decomposition purposes.
Image taken with my iPhone
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Thanks for the past. I been looking for someone to do a permaculture blog for a while. I been using coffee on my compost for 3 years now. Great to see the info passing on to others. Don't forget that coffee shops will give away free coffee grounds!
Excellent point @pcourtnier! My local Starbucks and McDonalds give away their grounds for free everyday. In my old compost I would get new grounds weekly (I had a rather large compost bin several years ago). The one I have right now is much smaller. So, the coffee grounds I add are plenty.
But, I definitely agree with you. If you don't drink coffee and want a free LARGE supply of coffee grounds just ask your local coffee shops. You can often leave with several pounds of used coffee grounds.. if not more! Thanks again for the comment!