coffe grounds can be used directly or mixed in teh compost. either way is fine.

it takes longer for everything to break down if you just directly toss it on the garden. but it will still compost in the end. my wife's grandparents toss all their fruit cores, bannana peels, etc directly in the little bed by their house. their pepper plant and tomato plant there thrive so it don't hurt. it is just more efficient to pile it all up and compost together.

you can start a pile in a corner somewhere for now if you don't have a proper bin yet. or even use a garbage can for a temporary bin. i do most of mine in a 55 gallon pickle drum. i just toss in the nightly scraps and use a shovel to cover it up.

Try both options and see which one you like best .
Compost piles love UCGs so gather as many as you can from work , home , church or places that serve coffee like Starbucks or Target . Just ask . And be sure they include paper filters . Compost loves paper too .

Flinging coffee grounds onto my hard alkaline clay has helped a great deal.

I think the grounds do double duty when scattered like this:

1. they condition the soil &

2. they attract earthworms like catnip attracts cats...
& worms loosen the clay as they tunnel through it, *and* leave earthworm castings (worm poo) to enrich the soil.

Since I often have a lot of coffee grounds, I do sometimes put them into the compost pile or the pile of shredded wood chips (this makes a wonderful "landscape mix" after a year or so!).

If you have 3 gallons of UCG I think you could spread the wealth! Put some on the garden and some in the compost.

Since I found this forum and started getting UCG from a coffee shop in town DH has been putting our daily small supply of used coffee grounds between the plants in the garden. I'm not going to discourage him as it can't hurt and they will help the garden. He wasn't sure what to do with the filters but I told him to throw them in the compost bin as they eventually break down (it's where they've always gone). The other larger supply of UCG is divided between my compost bin and "the compost pile".

Coffee grounds can be part of the organic matter added to your soil, by themselves or in compost. But they should not be the only type of organic matter added even thought they do have some very diverse nutrients to add to the soil.

I do both. I get trash bags of grounds from starbucks. They bag them in little bags for the Grounds for Gardens program and love when someone saves them the trouble of doing so by taking all available grounds in the morning. Saves them some work. I only take one bag, though. I don't want to bogart all the grounds from other composters.

FWIW, my local starbucks (uh, yeah, there's only one within 500 feet of my house) gave up on the program, but they told me to call in the morning and they'd save as many bags as I wanted for pickup in the evening.

Same as Sylviatexas here. I gather so much (250+lbs./wk) that I use it for both. The worms love it when you fling just before it rains and if you use it on your lawn the next morning you will find it has been aerated for free. :O)

One word of caution - do not place it thick like a mulch on the gardens. If it dries in this state, it will repel water. A thin layer is fine. Better yet, just fling!

coffee grounds are great, use em however. I find that saving them isn't so great cause they will grow a crust of mold which is a bit unplesant to handle so you just use em up or put em in the pile when you get em.

Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

Mel,

I used a pretty heavy layer of coffee grounds in my garden beds this spring. Everything is growing fine, although I think the carrots are splitting because they got too much nitrogen from the coffee grounds. I used about 2" or more on that particular bed.

The coffee grounds contain oil, so they will have to be mixed with the dirt to allow the water to penetrate. Also, if you just pour them on top without mixing them, they will form a crust that blocks water penetration.

As a side note, it seems that the corn is enjoying the coffee grounds.

Next year, I won't put coffee grounds into the soil before it warms up. I'd like to see the soil become biologically active so that the coffee grounds break down more quickly. I will probably add some this fall along with leaves and compost as long as the temperatures remain high enough to allow the microherd to work on the OM.

Oh, and be aware that UCG are acidic. In the west, that's a boon to the alkaline soils, but in the northeast, it will exacerbate the issue of acid soils.

Good luck,

Paul

i'm all for organic and all that, but here's one thing i've wondered about, some say that organic amendments can alter the soils ph, such as coffee grounds are said to do. I've also read that organic gardening practices help maintain a neutral ph, so.....is my question clear yet?? hehe

which do you believe to be more true?
or is it a case of: "who ever said the latter statement obviously never used coffee grounds"?

Coffee is acidic, but coffee grounds are not. Coffee grounds are very close to neutral. If they're used in the northeast, they'll help bring the soil closer to neutral.

west,
Compost buffers the pH, which means that it makes acidic and alkaline soils more neutral. Individual organic amendments do not necessarily do so.

Brewed coffee itself is acidic; coffee grounds are neutral to mildly acidic. Sunset magazine sent Starbucks grounds to a lab and found the pH was 6.2. Starbucks sent them to another lab and got pH 6.9 (neutral is 7.0). Other labs have found lower pH values, as low as 5.0. If you have a pH meter, try measuring the pH of your grounds. I'd guess that Starbucks grounds (the hockey pucks) are more neutral than home-brewed because they're so finely ground and more of the acidic brew is leached out of them.

To alter the pH of your soil enough to make any difference you would need to add such a large volume of that material that you would not be able to find you soil for years and by the time you did find your soil the Soil Food Web would have fixed the soil pH anyway. Adding organic matter to your soil will not significantly change your soils pH.

To alter the pH of your soil enough to make any difference you would need to add such a large volume of that material that you would not be able to find you soil for years and by the time you did find your soil the Soil Food Web would have fixed the soil pH anyway. Adding organic matter to your soil will not significantly change your soils pH.

kimmsr: Would LOVE to have you explain that to my neighbor! The man swears that the pine needles which I use as a mulch are making my soil acidic. (needles are free and pretty) He's an old-timer who's been gardening all his life and there's no changing his mind. :)

Aw, bummer for me about the pine needles. My soil is mildly alkaline and I was hoping all the pine needle mulch and compost (with five pine trees on a not-huge lot I've got plenty) would help the soil.

"Aw, bummer for me about the pine needles. My soil is mildly alkaline and I was hoping all the pine needle mulch and compost (with five pine trees on a not-huge lot I've got plenty) would help the soil."

They'll help. Adding organic matter will help bring the soil pH closer to neutral. It won't provide a huge acidic jolt, but it will help bring it closer to neutral.

Biologically active soil aka with compost slants a bit towards acidic. CO2 gas emits from the organisms and that means carbonic acid( the acid bite in cola comes from dissolved CO2 and is why flat soda is cloying). Pine needles will certainly help but you will not go from 7.5 to 6 or anything. If you compost with lots of pine and coffee ground you should get a small pull towards acid from the material and the CO2. If anyone worries about being acidic then wood ash takes care of that. Rain water and wood ash is a recipe for lye aka potassium hydroxide.

I recently read some research about soil pH under conifers. It showed that the soil pH dropped over the years as the accumulation of pine needles accumulated and decomposed.

Use pine needles to lower soil pH.