I'm a Flight Attendant. We serve bananas on the plane, and I collect all of the peels. I also save all of the coffee grounds and tea bags from the plane. When our church does breakfast for the homeless, I collect all of the eggshells...I get a lot! About a month ago, I started saving bones from things I've cooked and grinding them into bone meal. Why throw away free fertilizer?
Boil the bones, then scrub them to get all the meat off. Then dry them. I put them in the oven on its lowest setting, but you could just air dry them for a few weeks. I do the bones and banana peels at the same time to save energy. When completely dry, I grind them into powder. Chicken bones are easiest, beef bones are more dense and harder to grind.
I know you’ve been gone for a couple years but I still wanted to say thanks for inspiring me to go to my local coffee shop im picking up my first load of grounds today
My botany prof calculated we throw away enough coffee grounds to replace 10% of global fertilizer needs, currently filled by artificial means. That sounds small, but its actually huge as only 3% of fertilizer runoff causes most of the environmental damage.... so if we use coffee grounds in high risk areas, we could more than eliminate the fertilizer footprint on nature.
This is very interesting. One thing I am trying to understand is how something like coffee grounds differs from fertilizers in regards to leaching and runoff. How different are coffee grounds in the amount of eventual nitrogen runoff? Any references would be welcomed!
That doesn’t sound small at all. 10% is HUGE, especially for a free byproduct. Imagine all the harmful fertilizer mining we could prevent by making use of those.
Hi there! Thank you. I use coffee grinds (lightly sprinkled) around my Lilac bushes.They are around 20 feet tall. Wood ash is good for them too. I also have evergreens and holly bushes around my house that appreciate coffee grinds. I really also appreciate your information because I usually only sprinkle the coffee grinds lightly on the soil with some dead leaves, etc. I do not mix it in the soil. I was always wary of adding too much. Thanks for letting us know the acid is mostly in the brewed coffee. Hopefully I will add some to my compost area this year to help with that.
What a good way to use coffee grounds. Certainly a better idea than just throwing them in the garbage. I feel better about the amount of coffee I drink now!
I think more people need to look at alternative amendments when it comes to gardening, and coffee grounds is a great way to go! We save everything on our sustainable homestead and look at it as a small eco system that works together in harmony. This includes everything from the scraps we get from the kitchen or garden, to our chicken poop or our human manures! We use the Back To Eden model but never let any homesteading resources go to waste...WE just layer it on an let nature go to work! Thanks for the informative lesson....we need to stop buying commercial fertilizers and start looking at what we have!
this is what it takes to keep eggshell, produce trim and coffee grounds from the landfills! I sent inquiries to chain grocery stores and local diners, coffee shops and grocers. they were all willing to help out as long as I supplied a five gallon bucket and kept up with pick up. so, two 5 gallon buckets at each location with one in reserve, with a label on each for my email address and phone number. I am in business! it works and thanks for another great video!
did you know..........you can also use TEA grounds in the soil.They increase fertility and acid loving plants love them.For more info, please google "using tea grounds in the garden". Loved this video
I love reading other people comments, it is so educational, it's give me the head up on what to do in my garden, i try coffee GRAM, IN MY GARDEN, and i please of the resists. I get so much coffee gram, I have to give some to my community garden. I am having fun.
I've also been Rodin my bike around the small town in which I live, throwing watermelon, cantaloupe and bean seeds EVERYWHERE there is water and talk grass that doesn't get mowed often. Food should be free for everyone. I'm a dreamer.
One of the reasons I love this channel is that there's so much useful information. I've learned more about gardening here than anywhere else on RUclips. Thanks for all the hard work, Patrick!
It's good to put a variety of things in your compost pile, some for unexpected reasons. Watching some birds going to and from my pile (to one particular spot) got my curiosity up. When they left, I went out to see what they were so interested in. HAIR! I had cleaned my hairbrush, and since it's organic, had added it to the heap. I've since read that birds like to line their nests with it.
Excellent video on the technical details of why this works! We've been using coffee grounds for years at Sun Sugar Farms and collect it from our local church to prevent this wonderful product from going to landfills.
I would like to share the way I use coffee grounds. I don't till or plow at all. The way I prepare the beds is a layer of paper as a weed barrier, covered with hay, grass clippings or chopped leaves as mulch. I go right over the living sod or pasture without doing anything but mowing. However, I have found a great benefit in sprinkling out coffee grounds (and/or ground egg shells) right on the top of the ground before I roll out the paper and mulch to feed the worms. Those worms go to work on the coffee grounds in short order, meanwhile they do all the cultivation needed.
I'm installing an acre of HugelKultur and bring the coffee grounds home from the restaurant where I work. I've used them for years. Found this video by accident. Thought you might like this: I have been reseeding my 3 acre lawn with yarrow and clover for years. (Hate grass, other than compost.) Rather than spreading them with sand because the seeds are so tiny, I use my dried espresso grounds. I save them until once a year I put down my seeds. In the garden, I bury the coffee filters under the mulch. Nice video. Clear, precise and informative. Thanks.
Thanks, Christine! I'm glad to hear you're putting the coffee grounds to good use. I never thought of using dried grounds instead of sand to spread tiny seeds. Great idea!
I've been using coffee grounds for quite some time mostly on my blueberry and currant bushes, I also have fresh or well rotted horse manure available as well. Love your vids keep up the great work Frank
I have learned that by sprinkling Epsom Salt around my tomato plants, in a five foot radius from the center stalk, increased my tomato output over 75% from the previous season. A Tennessee horticulture teacher selling plants at a high school to help raise money for the kids told me and I did it and it works excellently just like old coffee grounds. Try it! You will be amazed too.
Thanks Elyse. I like your approach with the neighbor's leaves. I collect them from neighbors too. It won't be long before the leaves are falling again!
Used coffee grounds are one of our favorite free resources to use in the garden. In this video I talk about how and why we use them. I just learned yesterday about a new free resource that might be available; a microbrewery opened recently just blocks from our house. I'm hoping they'll let me pick up some of their brewery waste to use in my compost. What are your favorite free resources to use in your garden?
I used to get my grounds from Starbucks for my compost bin years ago. I now live fulltime in an RV where i only have a deck and small yard for growing, which is actually enough. The good thing is i have my own water-well here now, so its an upgrade for me since i love living as a Minimalist more than anything today! Thanks for the video, i needed an update on coffee grounds.
Kudos to Patrick for his efforts. Haven't seen anyone mention another free resource that is directly related to coffee--the burlap bags in which coffee is shipped. Coffee roasters will generally give the bags away because they would have to pay to dispose of them. The bags can be used as planters and and as mulch.As a natural material, burlap allows "air pruning" when the bags are used as planters. An air-pruned root system is much healthier than a circling root system that plastic pots encourage. I haven't tried using coffee bags for worms think they could probably be used there as well. Thanks again, Patrick, for all the great information you provide.
I AM A COFFEE DRINKER IT HELPS A LOT WITH MY ASHTMA, AND I WILL USE THIS YEAR ALL THE COFFEE GROUNDS THAT I HAVE BEING COLLECTING ALL THIS WINTER DO TO THE INFO POSTED IN RUclips, I THANK YOU PERSONALLY AND I WILL POST MY SUMMER'S RESULTS LATER ON THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT INFO ROSIE
ur the first person to share same advice my father gave me after my sons first asthma attack...he said give him coffee. he is sooo right so often i trust any odd folk remedy he and his side of the family have. just felt odd feeding my toddler coffee
It's amazing not too many people in my city in India are aware of used coffee grounds as an excellent source of natural npk. We encountered alot of odd looks when we started asking stores to keep used grounds for us!!!! A shame this wonderful resource ends up in land fills on a daily basis.
I know exactly what you mean. I get the same looks here. How popular is tea in India? I just read the other day that tea is even a better source of NPK (4.15/0.62/0.4). We already compost our used tea, but I might check to see if some of the local tea shops would be willing to collect them for me. Thanks for watching!
Yea their looks says- you plan to reuse those grounds ???!!!! Its funnier when I ask the building or park gardeners to give me dry leaves!!!! They ask with an incredulous look- Madam you want dry leaves??? India is pretty divided between tea and coffee. South Indians are coffee drinkers and in our western region it's tea. I too put our tea leaves into our compost bin. Thank you for all the great info on your channel .
I enjoyed your video. I use coffee grounds and eggshells on my lemon tree. After watching your video, I will be adding coffee grinds to all of my plants.
I'm glad I found this video of yours. I probably added 15-20 5lb. bags to my garden that I picked up from Starbucks. I leave the coffee filters in there, too. They seem to break down pretty quickly. I have seen a huge increase in worms since I have added them! Great video!
Thanks Clay! Yeah, as you can tell, I really like using coffee grounds. I ended up adding hundreds of pounds to the compost, worm bins, and garden last year. The grounds really keep my red wigglers well fed in the winter when I don't have garden waste to feed them. And, you're right, they're great for the earthworms too.
This spring I began using Rabbit Poop in my garden and in my compost piles. The worms really seem to love it. I've been using our coffee grounds for several years along with grass clippings and leaves at the end of the year.
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to go talk to my local starbucks about their grounds. I love the idea of helping to keep more stuff out of the landfills and having it also improve my garden which improves my families health. I'll spread the word to my garden enthusiast friends.
I use coffee grounds all the time but for an entirely different reason... ants hate it and will abandon any place that you put the coffee. I was great to hear that it is so good for the garden was well! I was worried that we may put too much on, since it is yesterday's grounds that go out each morning. as well scattering around your house will stall any invasion of ants.
+John Wickes I'm glad to hear the grounds have been helpful in battling ants. I wouldn't worry about using too much. We're were adding over 1,000 pounds (454 kg) per year for a while with excellent results.
That is great to know. I have a horrendous problem with ants and mosquitos. I also try to keep several loves ones' graves clean from ants covering up their footstones. I could never be a hand model because I have ant bites and mosquito bites all over my hands plus cuts from breaking limbs off of bushes I'm trying to kill to make room for more food producing plants. I need to put some ant killer on the footstone of a loved one in the cemetery as his US Army footstone covers up his name with ant beds. I got so angry with them one day that I just went nuts scraping off the ants with my hands and ended up with multiple bites. And I still wasn't able to get all the ants off the stone. I try to kill some of them every time I go up there. I get friends to save me their used coffee grounds, although I really only have one friend who will save them for me. I might put some used coffee grounds around the footstone in the cemetery and see if that helps. I live in NW Alabama and ants and mosquitos are horrendous here, especially if one has 0 type blood. Mine is O+ and they love to drink my blood. :(
I brought a potted cayenne pepper back to life 5 times, using just used coffee grounds. My friend uses tea bags and spent coffee grounds on his potted plants, and they always look so lush.
Free resource: Deli shops or donut shops, etc. I can glean 5-gallon food-grade buckets. Laundry mats, I glean free squared containers which contained powdered laundry soap. Some transfer my cold water--while I wait for shower to warm--I fill water into bucket and flush toilet or water plants, wash car, etc. AA members hold multiple meetings daily. Lots of free coffee grounds! My brother has a pond, I TRY to collect his free water for plants. Now, I have two tiny goldfish. I do not use a pump or filter. I change the water manually and re-purpose dirty water. You asked for ideas, I was hoping to read ideas on every single post.
I don't understand that because i've heard algae and other bacteria is bad for plants but then people say they do this, or water their plants with old tank water..
A system of aquaponics circulates fish water with waste (pee & poo) which feeds the plants. Red wigglers also use the algae, etc. Old tank water is excellent for plants.
I was thinking about asking my coffee shop about collecting their used grounds last night. We only use a pot a day but have been adding them to our pile and it sure helps.
Yeah, coffee grounds are great. You might as well ask, but don't be surprised if they look at you a little funny. Unfortunately, most people see the grounds as garbage and have a hard time understanding why anyone would want them.
I guess decaff grounds for my little lovelies. Best compost ever, go to the juice bar ask for the pulp, after finding pulp supply go to star bucks ask for grounds, walla now you will compost much faster and much better. Micro fine pulp degrades much faster than reg kitchen scraps and with bravo coffee grounds the worms will eat to there hearts content.
Thanks for the appreciation, I think Americans have a wake up call coming believing that the world will always beckon to our call of need,when comes to food. I'am learning over time to put resources to use in the garden & not spend a lot of time or energy. A few minutes day and planing ahead are all one needs to over time be more self reliant. Vegetables are good gifts as well as home jar pasta sauce & soups. Fresh green juice is great. My love was spending about $7.00 a day on fresh juice @ the juice and sandwich place, now I pick fresh out of the garden and walla juice.
I've been putting coffe grounds on my compost for years ,without knowing the benefits and because my neighbor told me so.Thank you so much for your great videos they help a lot.Hope this year i'll get a better crop from my garden.
I call local Tree Trimmers and landscapers and ask if I can get their Tree/grass clippings.. They have that HUGE machine they run the branches thru and it makes a great mulch. I add that to the soil and sprinkle coffee grounds on top of it. Plant seem to enjoy it. and that stuff does not end up in the land fill.
The Starbucks close to my house has a policy to place their used coffee grounds in double bags out in the customer area of the shop. I don't know about other coffee shops but this is a win win policy. I've been getting their coffee grounds for the past several months to mix into my fall leaf compost.
every time I go to my Starbucks, some one has gotten the grounds already no matter what time of the day I go!! Somebody must be coming by all the time to get them!!! :(
I used to work in EMS and during our down times (when we were lucky enough to have down times) we used to stop by all the Starbucks in our district. My partner would get a coffee and smoke, and I would hit them up for their free "Grounds for the Garden." Most days I had competition with others (one woman in particular), but sometimes I would leave with a 25+lb bag of grounds. But, sometimes I forgot to take the bags out of the side compartment at end of shift. The next shift would wonder "what the...???" but since it made the whole ambulance smell of coffee, no-one seemed to complain. It certainly smelled nicer than the cleaning solutions we use on the rig.
Andrew Ovenden Great story! You went to some trouble to get those grounds. I agree about the aroma. They make our whole garden smell good. Thanks for stopping by!
My wife and I go to Scooter who runs a saw mill a mile and a half from our house and feat a few trash bags full of saw dust every month for the compost pile. We also get grounds from Starbucks when we pass by. GREAT VID!!
Haha I love this video I've watched it ten times, and got coffee grounds. You have an amazing garden, and since I'm a kid I agree with your low cost high yield concept.
W~! Was NOT expecting this much information when I opened this video. I am so impressed right now and instead off rushing to see your other videos, I will rewatch this again and go from there. Great job. Absolutely happy to subscribe. ThanQ
Thanks Rob! Glad to hear those grounds are going to good use! We haven't tried growing mushrooms in them yet, but that's a great way to use them too. Thanks for watching and commenting!
We collect our used coffee grounds each day. We put them in our compost piles and also around the rose bushes in the early spring and later, along with crushed egg shells and banana peels. Roses do great.
I've approached a big name restaurant in town about allowing me to collect/ gather the peanut shells that they offer to their customers. While the big name establishment claimed that they couldn't for "health code reasons," they recommended a much smaller, local restaurant that has been VERY willing to dump their excess peanut shells into a 5 gal. bucket- provided that I trade out buckets every week. I incorporate the shells into my garden for bio-available nitrogen that has been "fixed" to the soil molecules in the same way that all legumes put nitrogen back into the soil. Thus far, it has worked wonderfully! If you're worried about the peanut shells being salted, a quick rince in a strainer/ collander works wonders.
Early this year I got some coffee grounds from a local starbucks and put them around my rose plant and it really shot up. My neighbor even noticed and commented on it so yes it is quite a boost to roses.
That's good to hear! I've only increased my use of coffee ground since making this video, and I'm seeing good results too. Thanks for watching and sharing your experience.
Great clip :) Nice to hear you speaking of worms eating bacteria.. Just got a coffee machine & have been saving all our grounds.. I have read that you can use them for mushroom growing so might give that a whirl.. Cheers..
I break up eggs shells and add to my coffee grounds. Then put in bags to freeze until ready to use to prevent molding. My azaleas in one bed have never flowered in 2 years. After sprinkling ground around them thr buds showed up en masse in late summer! Whoopee! Just saying...why buy expensive fertilizers and throw away coffee Grounds? Listen to the man.😁
You don't have a lot of views, but you should! Your video explains much more of the science going on. Good for my gardening elective with elementary school.
I had always thought coffee grounds were too acidic, so I had only used them for my tomatoes. Good to know they can be used for the whole garden. Thanks.
I am going to start the Back to Eden garden this year. Last year my garden grew good but i want to put a cover of wood chips on. If i were to add coffee grounds to the top of the chips wouldn't the grounds be washed in from watering and rain? Then it might tie up nutrients like if i were to mix them up in the dirt like you suggested not to do? Another question how often do you add them to you're garden during the growing year?
Great questions. Yes, rain will wash the grounds down through the mulch, but I think that they won't make their way down to the root zone without help from earth worms and other soil organisms. The activity of these organisms should help make the nitrogen plant available. I haven't noticed any nitrogen deficiencies in my plants, and I don't use any store-bought fertilizers. Probably 80 to 90% of the coffee grounds I collect end up in the compost and vermicompost. The rest is used as mulch. I would guess I add coffee grounds to the mulch about a dozen times during the growing season. I also often add quite a bit in the late fall and early winter when the beds are fallow. I hope this helps. Thanks for watching!
Back to Eden is a great technique, especially if the wood chips are well aged and have enough leaves and such mixed in. One tip though, you are basically artificially creating an Alfisol with the technique. Now Alfisols are fertile and considered prime farmland. However, Alfisols are not the best. They are prone to leaching, (creating Ultisol) especially if you get lots of rain or water a lot, and their A horizon is MUCH narrower than Mollisols. The really prime gardening or farming soil is Mollisols. Their A horizon is typically a foot or more deep! Even 2 to 3 feet deep is not uncommon. THAT you can grow in! If you are interested in going over the top and really creating "Eden" I recommend a hybrid approach to the "Back to Eden" technique. Start off the same as the Back to Eden instructions describe. BUT use cover crops in your rotation and even between rows, including deep rooted perennial grasses that are controlled by moderate mowing. (not too much, the shorter you mow, the shorter the roots) Mollisols are created by those tall grasses deep roots feeding the soil biome. This won't work in absolutely every soil, but the vast majority of soils out there can be turned into Mollisols with some creativity. You can drive up the carbon content 5 - 10% down in the soil 1-3 feet deep. Do that and you can grow anything!
Red Baron Farm Thanks for sharing this information. Very interesting!
10 лет назад+6
Goodness- never heard of Alfisols and Mollisols- thanks SO MUCH for this input- it helped me understand what is going on on our farm! (Drylands of Brazil)
Thanks Lisa! I'm glad to hear you are going to give used coffee grounds a try in your garden! It's nice that you are getting your wood chips delivered. We have to pick ours up in our little Honda Civic.
one day I was drinking coffee, then I saw how it gave me engery,well I had a sudden feeling that my roses may just want a pick up. well I tell you in a week my flowers roses are nonstop. I found out from myself. No experts
Hello neighbor, From the research I have done about the grubs are this. Before the end of winter, wet the soil, cover with clear plastic right on top of the soil. The heat will kill off the grubs. Just moisten the soil, cover it and put bricks on it to hold it down. The temps with the sun will reach 120 to 140 and kill off the grubs from what I have researched. We too have a problem with them. Also have to fix a problem with antimicrobial tea we put down last march. Hoping with some mulch and coffee grounds will cure it, along with the plastic. I like the tips on the winter cover in one of your videos. A lot of good info. Thank you!
Hi Gary. Thanks for sharing your approach to controlling grubs. The mulch and coffee grounds should help the microbial life in your garden. Thanks for watching and commenting!
A few weeks I started to collect the green "waste" at my working place. The greens thrown away in the restaurant were going in the regular bin as happens in a lot of places. They simply don't want the fuzz of selecting. I offered to donate a bin that I have to take home after work. In a few weeks it has given me about 15 kilo of good composting material. I am glad to help myself and the environment in the process.
GREAT!!!...BIG THUMBS UP. I thought I'd share with you and others that coffee also repels snails and slugs. I don't have this issue as some do but I will guess it is because of the coffee. My aunt was having problems with snails and I told her about this method and she has been asking my advice for other organic natural matters since. She said she hasn't seen a slug in a while. I am sure she doesn't miss them. ;-D
Thanks! I appreciate that. Funny you should mention that. I actually did a video recently in which I tested coffee grounds as a slug deterrent. They worked very well! Thanks again!
Thanks, I'd thought the grounds would be too acidic but I'll start adding them. I wonder though, if all this coffee will keep my worms up at night... neighbors are already complaining with all the snaps, crackles and pops coming from the worm bed as it is! :-)
my local Starbucks has a compost bin and compostible plastic bags for it's used grounds. They make ~100lbs /day, so good on them! I think they encourage you to pick up.
I live in eastern Florida and not one coffee house, fast food place or restaurant will let me have their used coffee grounds. I've even contacted corporate headquarters but they say it's up to the individual managers. Managers tell me it takes 'too much employees time', there are 'health concerns' and of course the reliable stand-by 'my insurance company won't allow it'. My two cups of coffee a day have to suffice.
Yeah. 7/11, Circle K, Kangaroo, even independent diners. I've run into a brick wall, but my neighbors are now saving theirs so I think it will work out great. Thanks
in California and Oregon it seems like just about every coffee shop will oblige me if I hand them a clean black plastic pail, if I time it right during the morning rush, they'll fill up the whole bucket while I read a book and drink my coffee. In Chicago and Ohio it wasn't always the same but not too hard to find a place that will, especially independent coffee shops.
Excellent video. I have a lot of coffee grounds in a bucket. I'm just about to add new soil to my re-built raised bed (old wood rotted after 10 years). Thanks to your advice, I'm not going to mix my coffee gounds directly into the potting soil mix as I was planning to do. Instead I will sprinkle the grouns around plants on the surface. Thank you for your excellent video 😀
Hmmmmm. I have a really HUGE pile of hardwood chips in my back yard. I don't want to wait three years for it to break down (it's way too tall to turn). I'm thinking, maybe if I climb to the top with an iron rake, level it a bit, then dump coffee grounds on the top. The rains would filter the grounds down into the pile, and maybe it'd take only TWO years? maybe? what do YOU think?
Hi Annie.Wow, that must be a huge pile. Adding coffee grounds on top might help some, but not as much as if they were mixed in. Have you considered using some of the chips as mulch instead of waiting for them to break down more?
Yes, the pile is 3-foot taller than me! I DO use it for mulch, and also put some in my composters, but not much, because they are larger chips. It helps keep the weeds down, and since I have a lot of clay, it keeps the clay from sticking to my boots!
Yes, adding moist "fines" to your wood chips will do the trick FAST. Grass cuttings, coffee grounds, dead leaves, and seaweed if you can get it are all GREAT. I collect all of the above for free in old soil bags or garbage bags. You can even throw a cheap bag of steer or chicken manure in there and water it into the chips, it will really get things cooking. Often, cheap bags of chicken manure are already "hot", cooking with bacteria and colonized with bluish-white flourescent fungi. Try using water that has been left to gas off the chlorine for 24 hours so it won't kill bacteria and fungi. Also any old grains soaked and thrown in the pile will encourage fungal growth. Fungus really does a good job of breaking down wood chips.
When I put wood chips on my garden path, they disappearsin about a year. I have to shovel the soil off the weed barrier from time to time. The bottom layer is made of sticks, and I usually finish off with dried plume grass. It is beautiful and the dirt it makes in a few years is rich and black.
we think a lot alike ! great info thanks for sharing. items i typically get are : wood chips, 5-10yds at a time . and logs that i chainsaw-mill for my craftwork leaves/grass from landscapers,by the truckload horse manure/bedding coffee and the burlap sacks it comes in (trying planting in them next season!) veggie scraps,from raw-vegan cafe. sawdust from my woodshop. cardboard from local shopping plaza (sheetmulching/weed-barrier) pallets from industrial parks.(building projects)
coffee grounds in the dump do react with the garbage and cause the composting process. Unfortunately this is done underground without oxygen (anaerobic bacteria) and this generates large amounts of the green house gases that are destroying us. Above ground composting uses the aerobic bacteria that use oxygen and no green house gases are produced. Therefore it is very important to keep the coffee grounds out of the landfills.
Thanks for the reply. My pile is comprised mostly of banana peels (20 a day) and a variety of fruit trimmings and rinds. there are some branches in there as well, along with dirt and weeds and of course coffee grounds and sawdust. Last week I sprayed a concoction onto my pile that I have read will break down my pile faster. It's a can of coke, a can of beer and 8oz of ammonia. I used about 20 gallons of water via end-of-hose sprayer. We just planted blueberry bushes and my tomato plant in this garden along with other very interesting-looking plants whose names I can neither remember or pronounce. The garden is mostly clay and topsoil so we are trying to build compost as fast as possible to give our garden what it needs. And lots of it.
I've encountered this concept. Check out Jay Weidner's "Elixir of Life" Philosopher Stone. I've not tried his formula. I thought that urine was the way the body rids itself of toxins. But I've been mixing mine with water from my lavatory in my shop, and pouring it on my compost pile of yard waste and clay. I swear that after 1 year, it turns clay into black soil. I also drain my washing machine into the yard or my compost pile. I get double my money's worth in water.
Urine is a great source for gardens, but make sure you are healthy and don't take tons of medications. I am disabled and on so much medication, I would probably kill any plant I tried to use it on. But I know of a few healthy people who load up on quality vitamins and good organic foods who use it in their gardens and they have beautiful gardens. One couple I know who do this, however, their kids will not eat anything from the garden because they think it's "gross." LOL
Thank you so much for this Video!!! I use leftover veggies or the cut parts from a Chinese restaurant down the street. They will give me multiple 5 gallon buckets worth of veggie compost per visit!
You're very welcome, EnergyBare ! It's great that you're able to get the veggie waste from the Chinese restaurant! So much better than letting it go to waste. Thanks for watching!
This is so interesting. I was having a coffee when the owner had a bucket of coffee grounds in it. So i said to mu husband o am sure that could be good for our soil. So i looked it up and found your video. Now i can ask if thy dont use this coffee grounds i will take it for my ground. We have small plots . It will help the soil not to be so acidic. Tks for your info . Always learning 👍🏻🙏🏻🤔
I'm a Flight Attendant. We serve bananas on the plane, and I collect all of the peels. I also save all of the coffee grounds and tea bags from the plane. When our church does breakfast for the homeless, I collect all of the eggshells...I get a lot! About a month ago, I started saving bones from things I've cooked and grinding them into bone meal. Why throw away free fertilizer?
I couldn't agree more, Roxanne!
+OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening never thought about the bones could you elaborate on how you do this??
Boil the bones, then scrub them to get all the meat off. Then dry them. I put them in the oven on its lowest setting, but you could just air dry them for a few weeks. I do the bones and banana peels at the same time to save energy. When completely dry, I grind them into powder. Chicken bones are easiest, beef bones are more dense and harder to grind.
🙀
grow house
This is one of the best videos on gardening. The speaker is direct, information clear and very useful.
Okay, thank you for the information.
And whole bean that you grind yourself?
Agree - I like his speaking/facilitation style too
As a bartender, I recycle all the coffee grounds, tea grounds, and fruit garnishes; for my compost pile. (:
That's great to hear! Improving soil, and reducing landfill waste! What's not to like about that?
I dry my tea bags and crushed my egg shella also for my garden natural organic is the best and true way to grow your plants
What happened to this channel? Haven’t seen an upload for over a year. It is one of the best gardening channels I’ve seen.
I know you’ve been gone for a couple years but I still wanted to say thanks for inspiring me to go to my local coffee shop im picking up my first load of grounds today
My botany prof calculated we throw away enough coffee grounds to replace 10% of global fertilizer needs, currently filled by artificial means. That sounds small, but its actually huge as only 3% of fertilizer runoff causes most of the environmental damage.... so if we use coffee grounds in high risk areas, we could more than eliminate the fertilizer footprint on nature.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing that.
That sounds really interesting.
This is very interesting.
One thing I am trying to understand is how something like coffee grounds differs from fertilizers in regards to leaching and runoff.
How different are coffee grounds in the amount of eventual nitrogen runoff?
Any references would be welcomed!
That doesn’t sound small at all. 10% is HUGE, especially for a free byproduct. Imagine all the harmful fertilizer mining we could prevent by making use of those.
You straight talk it, no bullshit. That's why you are my favorite RUclips gardener! Thanks for everything!
+Joshua Bader Thanks so much for your support, Joshua!
Hi there! Thank you. I use coffee grinds (lightly sprinkled) around my Lilac bushes.They are around 20 feet tall. Wood ash is good for them too. I also have evergreens and holly bushes around my house that appreciate coffee grinds. I really also appreciate your information because I usually only sprinkle the coffee grinds lightly on the soil with some dead leaves, etc. I do not mix it in the soil. I was always wary of adding too much. Thanks for letting us know the acid is mostly in the brewed coffee. Hopefully I will add some to my compost area this year to help with that.
What a good way to use coffee grounds. Certainly a better idea than just throwing them in the garbage. I feel better about the amount of coffee I drink now!
I couldn't agree more!
I think more people need to look at alternative amendments when it comes to gardening, and coffee grounds is a great way to go! We save everything on our sustainable homestead and look at it as a small eco system that works together in harmony. This includes everything from the scraps we get from the kitchen or garden, to our chicken poop or our human manures! We use the Back To Eden model but never let any homesteading resources go to waste...WE just layer it on an let nature go to work!
Thanks for the informative lesson....we need to stop buying commercial fertilizers and start looking at what we have!
+Starry Hilder I couldn't agree more, Starry!
you saided a mouth full
Saided? LOL
So true
Put your shit down the toilet you're not a horse
GREAT explanation of coffee-ground chemistry! I've heard in general that coffee grounds were useful, but this was the best explanation of why. Thanks!
this is what it takes to keep eggshell, produce trim and coffee grounds from the landfills! I sent inquiries to chain grocery stores and local diners, coffee shops and grocers. they were all willing to help out as long as I supplied a five gallon bucket and kept up with pick up. so, two 5 gallon buckets at each location with one in reserve, with a label on each for my email address and phone number. I am in business! it works and thanks for another great video!
That's great, 1mtstewart ! Keeping valuable material out of landfills while improving your soil is huge!
did you know..........you can also use TEA grounds in the soil.They increase fertility and acid loving plants love them.For more info, please google "using tea grounds in the garden".
Loved this video
Thanks, umair ahmed! Yes, tea is even better than coffee!
just be careful you do not use tea bags that are not biodegradable. Some tea companies have started using plastic tea bags.
the power of tea leaves
I love reading other people comments, it is so educational, it's give me the head up on what to do in my garden, i try coffee GRAM, IN MY GARDEN, and i please of the resists. I get so much coffee gram, I have to give some to my community garden. I am having fun.
I've also been Rodin my bike around the small town in which I live, throwing watermelon, cantaloupe and bean seeds EVERYWHERE there is water and talk grass that doesn't get mowed often. Food should be free for everyone. I'm a dreamer.
Guerrilla gardening! I love it!
Sean MacLeod now that's just beautiful 😊modern day Johnny Apple seed.
Robin Corprew
how did it work out?
These "non native seeds" have already been here established for hundreds of years from European colonists.
One of the reasons I love this channel is that there's so much useful information. I've learned more about gardening here than anywhere else on RUclips. Thanks for all the hard work, Patrick!
Thanks!
It's good to put a variety of things in your compost pile, some for unexpected reasons. Watching some birds going to and from my pile (to one particular spot) got my curiosity up. When they left, I went out to see what they were so interested in. HAIR! I had cleaned my hairbrush, and since it's organic, had added it to the heap. I've since read that birds like to line their nests with it.
Interesting! I thought they might be looking for worms.
Thay were using your hair for ther nests thay will take hair if thay find it
Excellent video on the technical details of why this works! We've been using coffee grounds for years at Sun Sugar Farms and collect it from our local church to prevent this wonderful product from going to landfills.
I would like to share the way I use coffee grounds. I don't till or plow at all. The way I prepare the beds is a layer of paper as a weed barrier, covered with hay, grass clippings or chopped leaves as mulch. I go right over the living sod or pasture without doing anything but mowing. However, I have found a great benefit in sprinkling out coffee grounds (and/or ground egg shells) right on the top of the ground before I roll out the paper and mulch to feed the worms. Those worms go to work on the coffee grounds in short order, meanwhile they do all the cultivation needed.
That's a great approach, and an excellent use of coffee grounds!
I'm installing an acre of HugelKultur and bring the coffee grounds home from the restaurant where I work. I've used them for years. Found this video by accident.
Thought you might like this: I have been reseeding my 3 acre lawn with yarrow and clover for years. (Hate grass, other than compost.) Rather than spreading them with sand because the seeds are so tiny, I use my dried espresso grounds. I save them until once a year I put down my seeds. In the garden, I bury the coffee filters under the mulch.
Nice video. Clear, precise and informative. Thanks.
Thanks, Christine! I'm glad to hear you're putting the coffee grounds to good use. I never thought of using dried grounds instead of sand to spread tiny seeds. Great idea!
I've been using coffee grounds for quite some time mostly on my blueberry and currant bushes, I also have fresh or well rotted horse manure available as well. Love your vids keep up the great work
Frank
Just picked up 15 - 5 gallon buckets worth of coffee grounds today.... Will be adding them to my compost piles in the coming days...
I have learned that by sprinkling Epsom Salt around my tomato plants, in a five foot radius from the center stalk, increased my tomato output over 75% from the previous season. A Tennessee horticulture teacher selling plants at a high school to help raise money for the kids told me and I did it and it works excellently just like old coffee grounds. Try it! You will be amazed too.
Epson salt? I g'night salt "poisons the earth" . how often and how much salt? Does it accumulate too much after awhile?
Thanks Elyse. I like your approach with the neighbor's leaves. I collect them from neighbors too. It won't be long before the leaves are falling again!
I used to think they were too acidic thanks for clearing that up I will be using them more now.
You're very welcome!
Used coffee grounds are one of our favorite free resources to use in the garden. In this video I talk about how and why we use them. I just learned yesterday about a new free resource that might be available; a microbrewery opened recently just blocks from our house. I'm hoping they'll let me pick up some of their brewery waste to use in my compost. What are your favorite free resources to use in your garden?
I've been saving coffee and egg shells I'm looking forward to seeing the results! Thanks for posting.
You're welcome! Best wishes with your garden!
I used to get my grounds from Starbucks for my compost bin years ago. I now live fulltime in an RV where i only have a deck and small yard for growing, which is actually enough. The good thing is i have my own water-well here now, so its an upgrade for me since i love living as a Minimalist more than anything today! Thanks for the video, i needed an update on coffee grounds.
Love the explanation as to 'why' coffee grinds work. I am such a garden nerd that I couldn't wait to get home to watch more of your videos! lol
+Paula Beattie Thanks, Paula! That is very nice of you to say. I'm glad you enjoy my videos.
Kudos to Patrick for his efforts. Haven't seen anyone mention another free resource that is directly related to coffee--the burlap bags in which coffee is shipped. Coffee roasters will generally give the bags away because they would have to pay to dispose of them. The bags can be used as planters and and as mulch.As a natural material, burlap allows "air pruning" when the bags are used as planters. An air-pruned root system is much healthier than a circling root system that plastic pots encourage. I haven't tried using coffee bags for worms think they could probably be used there as well. Thanks again, Patrick, for all the great information you provide.
You're very welcome! Burlap bags are a great free resource. Thanks for sharing that.
We drink a lot of coffee and i do use it in my compost. I also use egg shells and some leftover fruits or veggies. It's a good way to recycle.
I'm glad to hear you're putting those excellent free resources to use!
Thanks Frank. It's great to hear you are making good use of valuable resources that might otherwise go do waste.
Starbucks gave me 2 bags of Uesed coffee grounds for my garden and they were nice about it.
The one near my house gives me 3 or 4 buckets full (5 gallon buckets) every week. I put half in my leaf pile and the rest straight in my garden.
I AM A COFFEE DRINKER IT HELPS A LOT WITH MY ASHTMA, AND I WILL USE THIS YEAR ALL THE COFFEE GROUNDS THAT I HAVE BEING COLLECTING ALL THIS WINTER DO TO THE INFO POSTED IN RUclips, I THANK YOU PERSONALLY AND I WILL POST MY SUMMER'S RESULTS LATER ON THANK YOU FOR THE GREAT INFO ROSIE
Hi Rosie! I'm glad to hear you'll be putting your used coffee grounds to good use in your garden. Thanks for watching and commenting!
ur the first person to share same advice my father gave me after my sons first asthma attack...he said give him coffee. he is sooo right so often i trust any odd folk remedy he and his side of the family have. just felt odd feeding my toddler coffee
It's amazing not too many people in my city in India are aware of used coffee grounds as an excellent source of natural npk.
We encountered alot of odd looks when we started asking stores to keep used grounds for us!!!! A shame this wonderful resource ends up in land fills on a daily basis.
I know exactly what you mean. I get the same looks here. How popular is tea in India? I just read the other day that tea is even a better source of NPK (4.15/0.62/0.4). We already compost our used tea, but I might check to see if some of the local tea shops would be willing to collect them for me. Thanks for watching!
Yea their looks says- you plan to reuse those grounds ???!!!! Its funnier when I ask the building or park gardeners to give me dry leaves!!!! They ask with an incredulous look- Madam you want dry leaves???
India is pretty divided between tea and coffee. South Indians are coffee drinkers and in our western region it's tea. I too put our tea leaves into our compost bin.
Thank you for all the great info on your channel .
Mumbai Balcony Gardener | Avid Life Observer very true .... get weird look .
OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening yes very popular .. Sp for Rose.. and vegetables ...
Your local chia wala might have something for you to use
THIS IS INTERESTING AND HELPS A LOT FOR OUR ENVIRONMENT AND FOR OUR WAY OF LIFE. GREAT THANK YOU very much for sharing
I love to use left over tea watered down or the tea leaves themselves for flowering plants and bushes. Never thought to use coffee grounds!
I enjoyed your video. I use coffee grounds and eggshells on my lemon tree. After watching your video, I will be adding coffee grinds to all of my plants.
I'm glad I found this video of yours. I probably added 15-20 5lb. bags to my garden that I picked up from Starbucks. I leave the coffee filters in there, too. They seem to break down pretty quickly. I have seen a huge increase in worms since I have added them! Great video!
Thanks Clay! Yeah, as you can tell, I really like using coffee grounds. I ended up adding hundreds of pounds to the compost, worm bins, and garden last year. The grounds really keep my red wigglers well fed in the winter when I don't have garden waste to feed them. And, you're right, they're great for the earthworms too.
I was able to source used coffee grounds by the 55 gallon drum... I use them all over the garden....
@@dhammon64 how do you get that much???
@@rollandelliott ... Through a roaster/brewer near where I live...
This spring I began using Rabbit Poop in my garden and in my compost piles. The worms really seem to love it. I've been using our coffee grounds for several years along with grass clippings and leaves at the end of the year.
Thanks for the tip. I'm going to go talk to my local starbucks about their grounds. I love the idea of helping to keep more stuff out of the landfills and having it also improve my garden which improves my families health. I'll spread the word to my garden enthusiast friends.
You're very welcome, Jennifer! It's great to hear you'll be putting some grounds to good use and spreading the word!
coffee grounds a good soil medication
I miss old youtube vids like this. Better times.
I use coffee grounds all the time but for an entirely different reason... ants hate it and will abandon any place that you put the coffee. I was great to hear that it is so good for the garden was well! I was worried that we may put too much on, since it is yesterday's grounds that go out each morning. as well scattering around your house will stall any invasion of ants.
+John Wickes I'm glad to hear the grounds have been helpful in battling ants. I wouldn't worry about using too much. We're were adding over 1,000 pounds (454 kg) per year for a while with excellent results.
Omg, thank you! Having an ant problem. Now I know how to solve it. :)
I am using it for the same reason, ants.
John Wickes wow
That is great to know. I have a horrendous problem with ants and mosquitos. I also try to keep several loves ones' graves clean from ants covering up their footstones. I could never be a hand model because I have ant bites and mosquito bites all over my hands plus cuts from breaking limbs off of bushes I'm trying to kill to make room for more food producing plants. I need to put some ant killer on the footstone of a loved one in the cemetery as his US Army footstone covers up his name with ant beds. I got so angry with them one day that I just went nuts scraping off the ants with my hands and ended up with multiple bites. And I still wasn't able to get all the ants off the stone. I try to kill some of them every time I go up there. I get friends to save me their used coffee grounds, although I really only have one friend who will save them for me. I might put some used coffee grounds around the footstone in the cemetery and see if that helps. I live in NW Alabama and ants and mosquitos are horrendous here, especially if one has 0 type blood. Mine is O+ and they love to drink my blood. :(
I love using coffee founds in my garden for flowers.. I’m going to try it with chives next
Thanks! I forgot to mention another benefit - they make your garden smell amazing, don't they?
I brought a potted cayenne pepper back to life 5 times, using just used coffee grounds. My friend uses tea bags and spent coffee grounds on his potted plants, and they always look so lush.
+Deplorable Games That's great! We've had great results with coffee grounds too.
Free resource: Deli shops or donut shops, etc. I can glean 5-gallon food-grade buckets. Laundry mats, I glean free squared containers which contained powdered laundry soap. Some transfer my cold water--while I wait for shower to warm--I fill water into bucket and flush toilet or water plants, wash car, etc. AA members hold multiple meetings daily. Lots of free coffee grounds! My brother has a pond, I TRY to collect his free water for plants. Now, I have two tiny goldfish. I do not use a pump or filter. I change the water manually and re-purpose dirty water. You asked for ideas, I was hoping to read ideas on every single post.
i use the filter residu from the fishes and turtles aquariums, does it really wel!
nice thks
I don't understand that because i've heard algae and other bacteria is bad for plants but then people say they do this, or water their plants with old tank water..
A system of aquaponics circulates fish water with waste (pee & poo) which feeds the plants. Red wigglers also use the algae, etc. Old tank water is excellent for plants.
Pam DeLong n
I was thinking about asking my coffee shop about collecting their used grounds last night. We only use a pot a day but have been adding them to our pile and it sure helps.
Yeah, coffee grounds are great. You might as well ask, but don't be surprised if they look at you a little funny. Unfortunately, most people see the grounds as garbage and have a hard time understanding why anyone would want them.
Now I realize Y worms stay up all night in some gardens.
I guess decaff grounds for my little lovelies. Best compost ever, go to the juice bar ask for the pulp, after finding pulp supply go to star bucks ask for grounds, walla now you will compost much faster and much better. Micro fine pulp degrades much faster than reg kitchen scraps and with bravo coffee grounds the worms will eat to there hearts content.
torry nerheim That's a great idea Torry! I never thought to get pulp from a juice bar.
Thanks for the appreciation, I think Americans have a wake up call coming believing that the world will always beckon to our call of need,when comes to food. I'am learning over time to put resources to use in the garden & not spend a lot of time or energy. A few minutes day and planing ahead are all one needs to over time be more self reliant. Vegetables are good gifts as well as home jar pasta sauce & soups. Fresh green juice is great. My love was spending about $7.00 a day on fresh juice @ the juice and sandwich place, now I pick fresh out of the garden and walla juice.
OneYardRevolution | Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening A
torry nerheim lol
After asking for about 2 years or even longer, I found one place that will save them for me! I'm overjoyed. Small victory, yay!
Persistence paid off!
Excellent video, I wish all instructional videos were as succinct and informative.
Thanks, George!
true
true
I've been putting coffe grounds on my compost for years ,without knowing the benefits and because my neighbor told me so.Thank you so much for your great videos they help a lot.Hope this year i'll get a better crop from my garden.
You're very welcome Leny_ragasa ! I'm glad you find my videos helpful.
I call local Tree Trimmers and landscapers and ask if I can get their Tree/grass clippings.. They have that HUGE machine they run the branches thru and it makes a great mulch. I add that to the soil and sprinkle coffee grounds on top of it. Plant seem to enjoy it. and that stuff does not end up in the land fill.
Raver Magik A major WinWin! Great work!
You are, as usual my main guiding light. Thank you.
The Starbucks close to my house has a policy to place their used coffee grounds in double bags out in the customer area of the shop. I don't know about other coffee shops but this is a win win policy. I've been getting their coffee grounds for the past several months to mix into my fall leaf compost.
That's great to hear RETiredGM ! I agree - it's a win win. You're going to have some great compost!
every time I go to my Starbucks, some one has gotten the grounds already no matter what time of the day I go!! Somebody must be coming by all the time to get them!!! :(
Becky Leppard That's happened to me too. I wonder if they'd hold them for you if you called in the morning?
I used to work in EMS and during our down times (when we were lucky enough to have down times) we used to stop by all the Starbucks in our district. My partner would get a coffee and smoke, and I would hit them up for their free "Grounds for the Garden." Most days I had competition with others (one woman in particular), but sometimes I would leave with a 25+lb bag of grounds. But, sometimes I forgot to take the bags out of the side compartment at end of shift. The next shift would wonder "what the...???" but since it made the whole ambulance smell of coffee, no-one seemed to complain. It certainly smelled nicer than the cleaning solutions we use on the rig.
Andrew Ovenden Great story! You went to some trouble to get those grounds. I agree about the aroma. They make our whole garden smell good. Thanks for stopping by!
My wife and I go to Scooter who runs a saw mill a mile and a half from our house and feat a few trash bags full of saw dust every month for the compost pile. We also get grounds from Starbucks when we pass by. GREAT VID!!
Thanks Sean MacLeod ! That's a great use of free resources! I bet the saw dust and coffee grounds really get your compost cooking.
Haha I love this video I've watched it ten times, and got coffee grounds. You have an amazing garden, and since I'm a kid I agree with your low cost high yield concept.
That's very nice of you to say! Thanks so much for watching!
LuCk Combat I wonder what your growing 😏🌿
W~! Was NOT expecting this much information when I opened this video. I am so impressed right now and instead off rushing to see your other videos, I will rewatch this again and go from there. Great job. Absolutely happy to subscribe. ThanQ
Thanks Rob! Glad to hear those grounds are going to good use! We haven't tried growing mushrooms in them yet, but that's a great way to use them too. Thanks for watching and commenting!
We collect our used coffee grounds each day. We put them in our compost piles and also around the rose bushes in the early spring and later, along with crushed egg shells and banana peels. Roses do great.
Coffee grounds, egg shells, and banana peels are 3 of our favorites for our plants too! Thanks for watching!
I've approached a big name restaurant in town about allowing me to collect/ gather the peanut shells that they offer to their customers. While the big name establishment claimed that they couldn't for "health code reasons," they recommended a much smaller, local restaurant that has been VERY willing to dump their excess peanut shells into a 5 gal. bucket- provided that I trade out buckets every week. I incorporate the shells into my garden for bio-available nitrogen that has been "fixed" to the soil molecules in the same way that all legumes put nitrogen back into the soil. Thus far, it has worked wonderfully! If you're worried about the peanut shells being salted, a quick rince in a strainer/ collander works wonders.
Jeff, you're going to have enough compost to go into business!
Aren't those peanut shells soaked in a salt solution? This couldn't be good for soil.
sounds like your in good hands
Not when you have a septic system that keeps the salt in your own soil.
My neighbor's leaves are always available and always free. They will love you for it.
Leaves are an excellent free resource for the garden!
My free source of coffee grounds is the coffee pot from work. I seldom drink it, but am building a nice collection from my co workers addicted to it.
That's a great source! There's never a shortage of coffee addicts in the workplace. LOL
YOU VALIDATED THE PATH I WAS ON .........THANK YOU ..............
You're welcome NEL LOCO ! Happy travels!
My neighbour works in our local coffee shop and saves all their grounds then delivers them to me! In return I give her some produce from my garden.
Early this year I got some coffee grounds from a local starbucks and put them around my rose plant and it really shot up. My neighbor even noticed and commented on it so yes it is quite a boost to roses.
That's good to hear! I've only increased my use of coffee ground since making this video, and I'm seeing good results too. Thanks for watching and sharing your experience.
Great clip :) Nice to hear you speaking of worms eating bacteria..
Just got a coffee machine & have been saving all our grounds.. I have read that you can use them for mushroom growing so might give that a whirl..
Cheers..
I break up eggs shells and add to my coffee grounds. Then put in bags to freeze until ready to use to prevent molding. My azaleas in one bed have never flowered in 2 years. After sprinkling ground around them thr buds showed up en masse in late summer! Whoopee! Just saying...why buy expensive fertilizers and throw away coffee
Grounds? Listen to the man.😁
My first time using coffee ground as fertilizer. Found your video. Direct to the point and informative. Thank you.
You don't have a lot of views, but you should! Your video explains much more of the science going on. Good for my gardening elective with elementary school.
Thanks Cindy! I'm glad you found the video helpful and hope your students do too.
Now it has 900000 views :)
I had always thought coffee grounds were too acidic, so I had only used them for my tomatoes. Good to know they can be used for the whole garden.
Thanks.
You're welcome!
excellent video. very helpful. thank you kindly.
+Jim Jones Thanks, Jim!
+Jim Jones
farm9.staticflickr.com/8308/7791757416_1cf817395f_c.jpg
cool
I will definitely check with our local coffee shops and try to get my hands on some used grounds. Thanks for another great video!
Great video, thanks for sharing!
Thanks, and you're very welcome!
Thank you! I'm trying to revitalize my parent's soil on a small budget. This is perfect!
Great! Best wishes revitalizing your parent's soil!
I am going to start the Back to Eden garden this year. Last year my garden grew good but i want to put a cover of wood chips on. If i were to add coffee grounds to the top of the chips wouldn't the grounds be washed in from watering and rain? Then it might tie up nutrients like if i were to mix them up in the dirt like you suggested not to do? Another question how often do you add them to you're garden during the growing year?
Great questions. Yes, rain will wash the grounds down through the mulch, but I think that they won't make their way down to the root zone without help from earth worms and other soil organisms. The activity of these organisms should help make the nitrogen plant available. I haven't noticed any nitrogen deficiencies in my plants, and I don't use any store-bought fertilizers.
Probably 80 to 90% of the coffee grounds I collect end up in the compost and vermicompost. The rest is used as mulch. I would guess I add coffee grounds to the mulch about a dozen times during the growing season. I also often add quite a bit in the late fall and early winter when the beds are fallow.
I hope this helps. Thanks for watching!
Back to Eden is a great technique, especially if the wood chips are well aged and have enough leaves and such mixed in. One tip though, you are basically artificially creating an Alfisol with the technique. Now Alfisols are fertile and considered prime farmland. However, Alfisols are not the best. They are prone to leaching, (creating Ultisol) especially if you get lots of rain or water a lot, and their A horizon is MUCH narrower than Mollisols. The really prime gardening or farming soil is Mollisols. Their A horizon is typically a foot or more deep! Even 2 to 3 feet deep is not uncommon. THAT you can grow in!
If you are interested in going over the top and really creating "Eden" I recommend a hybrid approach to the "Back to Eden" technique. Start off the same as the Back to Eden instructions describe. BUT use cover crops in your rotation and even between rows, including deep rooted perennial grasses that are controlled by moderate mowing. (not too much, the shorter you mow, the shorter the roots) Mollisols are created by those tall grasses deep roots feeding the soil biome.
This won't work in absolutely every soil, but the vast majority of soils out there can be turned into Mollisols with some creativity. You can drive up the carbon content 5 - 10% down in the soil 1-3 feet deep. Do that and you can grow anything!
Red Baron Farm Thanks for sharing this information. Very interesting!
Goodness- never heard of Alfisols and Mollisols- thanks SO MUCH for this input- it helped me understand what is going on on our farm! (Drylands of Brazil)
Thanks Lisa! I'm glad to hear you are going to give used coffee grounds a try in your garden! It's nice that you are getting your wood chips delivered. We have to pick ours up in our little Honda Civic.
one day I was drinking coffee, then I saw how it gave me engery,well I had a sudden feeling that my roses may just want a pick up. well I tell you in a week my flowers roses are nonstop. I found out from myself. No experts
Donna Your roses don't get energy from the caffeine... it's the nitrogen. Many things contain nitrogen.
Did you just tossed it on the ground?
Hello neighbor,
From the research I have done about the grubs are this. Before the end of winter, wet the soil, cover with clear plastic right on top of the soil. The heat will kill off the grubs. Just moisten the soil, cover it and put bricks on it to hold it down. The temps with the sun will reach 120 to 140 and kill off the grubs from what I have researched. We too have a problem with them. Also have to fix a problem with antimicrobial tea we put down last march. Hoping with some mulch and coffee grounds will cure it, along with the plastic. I like the tips on the winter cover in one of your videos. A lot of good info. Thank you!
Hi Gary. Thanks for sharing your approach to controlling grubs. The mulch and coffee grounds should help the microbial life in your garden. Thanks for watching and commenting!
being that I own 14 chickens currently and have 6 eggs in the incubator, I love to use their chicken manure to make Compost tea :P
Excellent point! I'm going to add an annotation to the video indicating this. Thanks!
Great info!!!
Thanks!
I just picked coffee grounds from starbucks and added them to my garden.. cannot wait to see the effect it has ..!
Awesome
Thanks UtahPrepper1 !
A few weeks I started to collect the green "waste" at my working place. The greens thrown away in the restaurant were going in the regular bin as happens in a lot of places. They simply don't want the fuzz of selecting. I offered to donate a bin that I have to take home after work. In a few weeks it has given me about 15 kilo of good composting material. I am glad to help myself and the environment in the process.
+George Veenstra That's fantastic, George! You're absolutely right. You're improving soil fertility and keeping valuable resources out of landfills!
Just got a large bag of coffee grounds from Starbucks for the garden.
now the fun starts
GREAT!!!...BIG THUMBS UP. I thought I'd share with you and others that coffee also repels snails and slugs. I don't have this issue as some do but I will guess it is because of the coffee. My aunt was having problems with snails and I told her about this method and she has been asking my advice for other organic natural matters since. She said she hasn't seen a slug in a while. I am sure she doesn't miss them. ;-D
Thanks! I appreciate that. Funny you should mention that. I actually did a video recently in which I tested coffee grounds as a slug deterrent. They worked very well! Thanks again!
Thanks, I'd thought the grounds would be too acidic but I'll start adding them. I wonder though, if all this coffee will keep my worms up at night... neighbors are already complaining with all the snaps, crackles and pops coming from the worm bed as it is! :-)
Wow, those are some busy worms! They'll love the used grounds. Thanks for watching and commenting!
my local Starbucks has a compost bin and compostible plastic bags for it's used grounds.
They make ~100lbs /day, so good on them! I think they encourage you to pick up.
Hi Karl! It's great to hear your Starbucks is doing this.
I live in eastern Florida and not one coffee house, fast food place or restaurant will let me have their used coffee grounds. I've even contacted corporate headquarters but they say it's up to the individual managers. Managers tell me it takes 'too much employees time', there are 'health concerns' and of course the reliable stand-by 'my insurance company won't allow it'. My two cups of coffee a day have to suffice.
I'm sorry to hear that. It's a shame to see such a great resource go to waste for no reason. And talk about lame excuses from the managers!
have you tried convenience stores/ gas stations?
Yeah. 7/11, Circle K, Kangaroo, even independent diners. I've run into a brick wall, but my neighbors are now saving theirs so I think it will work out great. Thanks
how rude. at least ya got decent neighbors! that's one thing i'm Truly grateful for.
in California and Oregon it seems like just about every coffee shop will oblige me if I hand them a clean black plastic pail, if I time it right during the morning rush, they'll fill up the whole bucket while I read a book and drink my coffee. In Chicago and Ohio it wasn't always the same but not too hard to find a place that will, especially independent coffee shops.
Excellent video. I have a lot of coffee grounds in a bucket. I'm just about to add new soil to my re-built raised bed (old wood rotted after 10 years).
Thanks to your advice, I'm not going to mix my coffee gounds directly into the potting soil mix as I was planning to do. Instead I will sprinkle the grouns around plants on the surface.
Thank you for your excellent video 😀
Once you get your SOIL growing, you just keep feeding it.
amen
Great info, I use coffee grounds weekly, adding them to my worm hotel and my composting tumbler and pile. Thanks for sharing
Hmmmmm. I have a really HUGE pile of hardwood chips in my back yard. I don't want to wait three years for it to break down (it's way too tall to turn). I'm thinking, maybe if I climb to the top with an iron rake, level it a bit, then dump coffee grounds on the top. The rains would filter the grounds down into the pile, and maybe it'd take only TWO years? maybe? what do YOU think?
Hi Annie.Wow, that must be a huge pile. Adding coffee grounds on top might help some, but not as much as if they were mixed in. Have you considered using some of the chips as mulch instead of waiting for them to break down more?
Yes, the pile is 3-foot taller than me! I DO use it for mulch, and also put some in my composters, but not much, because they are larger chips. It helps keep the weeds down, and since I have a lot of clay, it keeps the clay from sticking to my boots!
Yes, adding moist "fines" to your wood chips will do the trick FAST. Grass cuttings, coffee grounds, dead leaves, and seaweed if you can get it are all GREAT. I collect all of the above for free in old soil bags or garbage bags. You can even throw a cheap bag of steer or chicken manure in there and water it into the chips, it will really get things cooking. Often, cheap bags of chicken manure are already "hot", cooking with bacteria and colonized with bluish-white flourescent fungi. Try using water that has been left to gas off the chlorine for 24 hours so it won't kill bacteria and fungi. Also any old grains soaked and thrown in the pile will encourage fungal growth. Fungus really does a good job of breaking down wood chips.
When I put wood chips on my garden path, they disappearsin about a year. I have to shovel the soil off the weed barrier from time to time. The bottom layer is made of sticks, and I usually finish off with dried plume grass. It is beautiful and the dirt it makes in a few years is rich and black.
You're so right, Peggy Murdock! Broken down wood chips make incredible dark rich soil. Thanks for watching!
we think a lot alike ! great info thanks for sharing.
items i typically get are :
wood chips, 5-10yds at a time . and logs that i chainsaw-mill for my craftwork
leaves/grass from landscapers,by the truckload
horse manure/bedding
coffee and the burlap sacks it comes in (trying planting in them next season!)
veggie scraps,from raw-vegan cafe.
sawdust from my woodshop.
cardboard from local shopping plaza (sheetmulching/weed-barrier)
pallets from industrial parks.(building projects)
Wouldn't coffee grounds in the dump abe good way to compost the garbage too?
I suppose so, but the compost would be toxic and unusable.
no. land fills are compacted and built in such a way that it reduced the breaking down on materials to almost nill....
Dusty Gepner bs
very constructive.
coffee grounds in the dump do react with the garbage and cause the composting process. Unfortunately this is done underground without oxygen (anaerobic bacteria) and this generates large amounts of the green house gases that are destroying us. Above ground composting uses the aerobic bacteria that use oxygen and no green house gases are produced. Therefore it is very important to keep the coffee grounds out of the landfills.
Thanks for the reply. My pile is comprised mostly of banana peels (20 a day) and a variety of fruit trimmings and rinds. there are some branches in there as well, along with dirt and weeds and of course coffee grounds and sawdust. Last week I sprayed a concoction onto my pile that I have read will break down my pile faster. It's a can of coke, a can of beer and 8oz of ammonia. I used about 20 gallons of water via end-of-hose sprayer. We just planted blueberry bushes and my tomato plant in this garden along with other very interesting-looking plants whose names I can neither remember or pronounce. The garden is mostly clay and topsoil so we are trying to build compost as fast as possible to give our garden what it needs. And lots of it.
Hi Sean. Best wishes with your blueberries, tomatoes, and the rest of your garden. Your plants are going to love your compost! Thanks for watching!
i use my own urine as fertilizer. dilute 1:10 & feed my favorite plants & herbs. works very well. research 'human urine fertilizer' it on google.
Yes, human urine is an excellent fertilizer. Great use of a free resource!
I've encountered this concept. Check out Jay Weidner's "Elixir of Life" Philosopher Stone. I've not tried his formula. I thought that urine was the way the body rids itself of toxins. But I've been mixing mine with water from my lavatory in my shop, and pouring it on my compost pile of yard waste and clay. I swear that after 1 year, it turns clay into black soil. I also drain my washing machine into the yard or my compost pile. I get double my money's worth in water.
Just harvested my herbal produce made from nothing but my own urine. The yield's good for next 3 years !!
Urine is a great source for gardens, but make sure you are healthy and don't take tons of medications. I am disabled and on so much medication, I would probably kill any plant I tried to use it on. But I know of a few healthy people who load up on quality vitamins and good organic foods who use it in their gardens and they have beautiful gardens. One couple I know who do this, however, their kids will not eat anything from the garden because they think it's "gross." LOL
reading is knowing power!!
Thank you so much for this Video!!! I use leftover veggies or the cut parts from a Chinese restaurant down the street. They will give me multiple 5 gallon buckets worth of veggie compost per visit!
You're very welcome, EnergyBare ! It's great that you're able to get the veggie waste from the Chinese restaurant! So much better than letting it go to waste. Thanks for watching!
McDonalds has started donating their used coffee grounds to whoever comes in and asks for them
That's great! Thanks for letting everybody know!
Thanks! That's good to know!
thats news to my ears
This is so interesting. I was having a coffee when the owner had a bucket of coffee grounds in it. So i said to mu husband o am sure that could be good for our soil. So i looked it up and found your video. Now i can ask if thy dont use this coffee grounds i will take it for my ground. We have small plots . It will help the soil not to be so acidic. Tks for your info . Always learning 👍🏻🙏🏻🤔