Avid coffee drinkers love the kick of caffeine.  Well, our plants find it pretty great too.  Dilute your left over coffee every other week and water your house plants.   Coffee and coffee grounds are a source of nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, magnesium, and copper that will help keep your plants green and strong.  Add coffee grounds to your worm compost or traditional compost.  Left over grounds around the base of plants also help keep snails and slugs at bay.  Acid loving plants like melons, tomatoes, carrots, roses, azaleas, and blueberries will thank you for the boost.   If your not a coffee drinker, tea is good too or ask your local coffee shop for left over grounds.

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2 Comments

  1. Since you mentioned compost above I thought this would be a good time to bring this up I am in the market for a composter to add to the garden for the spring. I have been shopping around and reading lots of reviews. I am officially overwhelmed by my options, classic, rotating, electric (?!?!?!?), plastic, wood, metal! i also am not sure what size to get considering the size of my garden (not huge), and the amount of waste we generate (there are only two of us). I am planning on putting very close to the alley, and significantly reducing a bush that is currently there, so I understand I will need to cover that bad boy to prevent ‘vermin.’ Any advice/tips/recommendations you or any of your readers have would be greatly appreciate. Thanks!

  2. Karen,

    It is overwhelming! I personally have an exposed garden and coffee grounds compost that the vermin aren’t particularly interested in. This is a slower composting process, less involved. Then for food scraps, I recommend a worm compost indoors, they eat and move around and make beautiful castings for the garden. To balance both worlds and only have one, look into a compost tumbler. It doesn’t need to be automated, unless your in a hurry to get fresh compost. You just have to remember to provide your compost with equal parts green (vegetable and fruit scraps/coffee or tea grounds/plant trimmings) and brown (newspaper minus the glossy pages/dried leaves). There are some homemade plans out there or take a look at a small patio tumbling compost. Good Luck!

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