If you are a coffee person and enjoy having a cup of coffee every morning, you probably throw a lot of coffee grounds into the trash. Coffee grounds contain organic matter that is rich in nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, magnesium and copper. Thus, coffee grounds help improve the quality of your soil and the health of your plants. Therefore, in this post, we will provide with the best ways to use coffee grounds for plants.
Coffe grounds are an expensive way to improve your garden. When you use them correctly, they could replace chemicals and pesticides. Besides, they are widely available. Coffee shops often give coffee grounds to gardeners freely. If you have a coffee shop around you, don’t hesitate to head there and ask them for coffee grounds. You could use coffee grounds in different ways, all of these ways are included in the list below.
1. Coffee grounds are great mulching materials
No one can deny that mulching is great for your garden soil as well as your plants. However, mulching materials that are rich in organic are neither easy to find nor cheap to buy. Coffee grounds are excellent mulching materials and they are widely available for free.
However, you should never use coffee grounds directly on your garden soil as it has a drastic effect on the plants. Directly using thick layers of coffee grounds to mulch around your plants will stop their growth and hinder the germination rate of the seeds.
Coffee grounds contain caffeine which is known to restrain the growth of plants if they are heavily exposed to it. Besides, caffeine may resist water, nutrients and sunlight penetration which will cause the death of your plants. Therefore, it is best that you blend coffee grounds with other organic matter such as compost before using them as a mulch.
2. Coffee grounds can replace fertilizers
Coffee grounds contain many essential nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus. Therefore coffee grounds can be the perfect slow-release fertilizer for many plants. They will help and encourage your plants to grow and thrive.
Coffee grounds are ideal to apply to heavy feeders such as tomatoes and peppers. Adding coffee grounds to your soil will increase its nutritional value, improve the texture and fertility of the soil as well as attracts earth warms.
3. Coffee grounds are a good compost
Mixing your compost with coffee grounds is an excellent idea. As we mentioned earlier, coffee grounds help improve the quality of your garden soil by making it nutrient-rich soil, thus, coffee grounds contribute to preserving a warm temperature of the soil as well as help to retain moisture.
4. Coffee grounds deter pests
Since coffee grounds contain a good amount of caffeine which is poisonous to slugs and snail. Thus coffee grounds will keep these notorious pests away from your plants when they are sprayed on the surface of your garden soil. Besides, coffee grounds are disliked by fire ants, hence, they will stay away from your plants when they are mulched or fertilized with coffee grounds.
5. Coffee grounds adjust ph
Blending coffee grounds with your garden soil will not only make it more nutritional but they will also lower its ph levels. Coffee grounds can balance alkaline level and increase the acidity of your garden soil making it perfect for plants who prefer low ph level.
These are the uses of coffee grounds for plants. Sprinkling coffee ground in the surface of your garden soil or mixing it with compost will definitely contribute to the growth and the productivity of your plants. However, you should be careful about using coffee grounds. Don’t use a huge amount of them and don’t apply them directly because they may intoxicate your plants. Furthermore, it is best that you use coffee grounds with heavy feeders such as tomatoes and peppers.
I hope you found this article useful and if you have any inquiries, please contact us.