Use coffee grounds effectively in your garden with our guide. Discover their benefits and how to apply them to improve soil and plant health.
How to Use Coffee Grounds For Plants:
Coffee is one of the world’s favorite drinks, with over two billion cups being consumed daily according to the British Coffee Association. Although instant coffee accounts for some of this consumption, this still leaves behind vast quantities of coffee grounds – the term for waste from coffee percolators or filters – which are ideal for recycling in gardens to provide your soil and plants with essential nutrition – rather than adding it directly into landfill or pouring down drains where it could potentially blockages form.
Coffee grounds have long been used in anecdotal advice with mixed results as an anti-slug, pest, and animal deterrent, mulch, and fertilizer in gardens around the country. Unfortunately due to their great variation depending on type, content, and method of brewing, there has yet to be definitive scientific research on their usage; here we offer advice on the most efficient use for coffee grounds in your garden.
Are Coffee Grounds Good For Plants?
Coffee grounds make an excellent compost ingredient and should be applied directly onto most garden soil with care and in moderation for best results. As coffee grounds contain essential plant nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus as well as organic matter sources, they make for an ideal fertilizer addition.
How Can Coffee Grounds Benefit Plants?
The safest way to utilize coffee grounds in your garden is to add them to a compost container or worm bin, where used grounds decompose into beneficial nutrients that improve soil and produce healthier plants. While applying coffee grounds directly onto soil may work for some plants, be mindful when doing this as there’s never a one-size-fits-all approach – in particular, fine particles could clog together and prevent air and water from reaching plant roots, leading to root rot.
Composting Used Coffee
Coffee grounds make an excellent addition to compost piles because their moist, small particles make a perfect mix for speedy composting processes when mixed with dry and woody waste materials. Achieving good compost requires finding an equilibrium between wet and dry materials in your mixture – coffee grounds’ nutrients will be returned into the soil via finished compost as mulch or dug back in, further recycling back into its source soil. You could also include any un-drunk coffee as additional waste material in a bin.
Which Plants Benefit From Used Coffee Grounds?
Its Coffee’s slightly acidic properties make it perfect for acid-loving plants like hydrangeas as well as those requiring plenty of nutrients such as roses. Use sparingly on any one plant.
Coffee grounds have long been touted as one of the many materials said to help repel slugs, although results cannot be guaranteed. They may be placed near their favorite plants such as hostas; however, this solution may or may not work effectively.
Which Plants Don’t Like Coffee Grounds?
Coffee grounds contain caffeine. While much of it will have been transferred into the beverage during brewing, some remain. Caffeine can restrict growth in certain plants such as tomatoes as well as inhibit the germination of seedlings.
Coffee grounds can be an effective solution to repelling slugs, which seem to dislike both the caffeine and gritty textures of the grounds. Some gardeners have reported good results while others report no deterrence effect whatsoever. Other gardeners use it as a repellent against ants, cats, and foxes with mixed success – though more frequent applications should be applied after rain showers to maintain the effectiveness of any organic repellents such as this.
Coffee Grounds and Dogs:
Be mindful that caffeine can be toxic for dogs. Although grounds that have been brewed often contain very little caffeine, if your pup tends to snack on anything he finds nearby it would be wiser not to scatter grounds on the soil surface but add them directly into a compost bin or burrow it beneath the soil surface.
Where can you source coffee grounds for your garden? As well as using your kitchen or getting them from friends who do not own gardens, coffee shops, and restaurants often put out bins or bags of used grounds free of charge – if this option does not exist it might be worthwhile asking about.
FAQs
Q1. Can I just sprinkle coffee grounds on plants?
Yes, but be careful. Use them sparingly to avoid excess acidity.
Q2. How to use coffee grounds in potted plants?
Mix the coffee grounds into the soil or use as a thin top layer. Make sure not to over-apply.
Q3. Which plants do not like coffee grounds?
Some plants that prefer alkaline soil, like lavender, rosemary, and some succulents, do not like coffee grounds.
Q4. Which plants benefit from coffee grounds?
Plants that benefit from coffee grounds are mostly acid-loving plants like azaleas, blueberries, and roses.