Now I would be the first to admit that I do not have a green thumb. Living in an apartment, I don’t really have too many opportunities to try out gardening. I do have several potted plants – oops, make that HAD. For some reason, one of them died, so I am left with two and they do not seem to be in good shape. Anyhow, the point of this is that I ran across a gardening blog detailing the use of coffee grounds for the soil.
If you remember, I wrote an entry on some alternative uses of coffee way back in December. My ideas were quite different from what this blog, Gardening and Yardening, is talking about, though:
For the past ten years, Nancy and I have saved our used coffee grounds each day and when we had a gallon or so, we spread them on the garden someplace. Special attention was given to the acid loving azalea, rhododendrum and tomatoes. In my mind the coffee grounds were not a major soil amendment, but rather a kind of tonic made available from time to time.
The fact that this has been a practice for ten years amazes me – there is so much to find out out there! Here’s more:
Some basic facts: the pH of coffee grounds can range from 3.5 to 5.0, but are not a problem if used is thin layers up to 1/2 inch thick. Fresh used coffee grounds contain about 3% nitrogen, about the same as grass clippings. Earthworms consider coffee grounds to be the ice cream of their diet. Coffee grounds are bite sized for earth worms.
Aha! I may not have the knack for gardening but I do love these little bits of information.
Originally posted on February 16, 2008 @ 5:23 am