8 Reasons to Use Coffee Grounds in Your Garden
The next time you finish your morning coffee, think twice before you toss those used coffee grounds into the trash. Coffee grounds have many uses in the garden. They enrich the soil with nitrogen, potassium and other minerals, improve soil quality, and plant growth. There are so many reasons to use coffee grounds in your garden. Here are our top 8.
Before you begin, it’s important to remember that fresh coffee grounds are acidic and used coffee grounds are neutral. If you rinse your used coffee grounds, they will have a near-neutral pH of 6.5 and will not affect the acid levels of the soil. To use coffee grounds as fertilizer, work the coffee grounds into the soil around your plants.
Here are 8 Reasons to Use Coffee Grounds in Your Garden:
1. Nitrogen Source For Your Compost
Add coffee grounds to your composting bin. They’re a valuable source of nitrogen.
2. Natural Pest Control
A barrier of coffee grounds around the plants may protect them from slugs and snails.
3. Use as a Cat Repellent
Put coffee grounds in the soil to keep cats from digging in your garden.
4. Feed Your Acid-Loving Plants
Place coffee grounds around the soil of your acid-loving plants such as azaleas, hydrangeas, lilies, roses, rhododendrons, holly, gardenias and many others. Coffee grounds increase acidity and nutrients in the soil. This is our favorite reason to use coffee grounds in your garden.
5. Coffee Grounds are an Easy Fertilizer
Add 2 cups of coffee grounds to a 5-gallon bucket of water and allow it to steep overnight. Mixing these two ingredients is one of the simplest ways to make your own homemade fertilizer.
6. Use as Mulch
Using coffee grounds as mulch can help control weeds and keep your vegetable plants more hydrated during the heat of the day.
7. Boost Your Carrot & Radish Harvest
Double your harvest of carrot and radish, mixing your carrot and radish seeds liberally with coffee grounds. Root crops, like radishes and carrots, respond favorably – especially when mixed with the soil at planting time.
8. Suppress Weeds
The use of fresh coffee grounds is thought to suppress weeds too, having some allopathic properties, of which adversely affects tomato plants. Another reason why it should be used with care.
Coffee grounds and gardening go together naturally. Whether you are composting with coffee grounds or using used coffee grounds around the yard, you will find that coffee can give your garden as much of a pick me up as it does for you.
Most coffee shops have a program in place where they will readily give you their used grounds so reach out to your favorite coffee house and see what they offer.
Plants that Benefit from Coffee Grounds:
Azaleas
Coffee grounds that have already gone through the brewing process are considered moderately to highly acidic. Coffee grounds provide a natural means of maintaining the low pH levels azaleas prefer.
Hydrangeas
If your Growing Hydrangeas that the bloom color is affected by soil Ph, sprinkle coffee grounds underneath the shrub and you'll enjoy the most dazzling blue blooms you've ever imagined.
Roses
The main reason coffee grounds are so good for rose bushes is because of their high nitrogen content which roses need for the best growth. Roses need neutral to acidic soil, and if you add coffee grounds, it will help take the pH from neutral to acidic. Learn how to choose the best roses for your garden.
Rhododendron
Rhododendrons are in the same family as Azaleas and benefit equally as much from the incorporation of Spent Coffee Grounds.
Hollies
It is well known that holly plants love acidic soil. Sprinkle coffee grounds around the base of Holly Shrubs and Holly Trees for dense foliage growth and improved berry production.
Gardenias
Gardenias will appreciate coffee grounds mixed into the soil as well. Since they are rich in nitrogen, magnesium, and potassium, spent coffee grounds are oftentimes a more favorable gardenia fertilizer than commercially available Fertilizers.
Camellias
Whether you are growing Fall-Blooming Camellias or the Spring-Blooming Camellia, they both love acidic soil.
