Where did you get the story that adding coffee grounds might cause the bedding to become acidic?

I am just interested in the source of the story. Just curious.

Gardeniera I would not be overly concerned as long as the coffee is used grounds.

My question to you is why don't you feed a variety of food?

I don't think any living creature including us likes to eat the same thing every day. By adding a variety this would balance out your PH and give your castings a more diverse microbial colony.

If you still want to go with the coffee give your worms a chance to vote on what they like and don't. Set up your bin with two sides, one with mostly coffee and one with mostly food and see what they prefer.

I know you did not say just coffee but if you are changing the PH and I doubt you are, that would be too much.

Personally, i do not ask my worms what they might prefer.... Worms tend to go to sweet things like fruits, melons etc. It is a soft, easy food.

I use alot of paper products and alot of coffee grounds. To this I add whatever comes out of my kitchen (including sometimes a little meat).

BUT, I do not feed anything directly to my worms. I use a tumbler where I add whatever compostable product I have available. As I turn the tumbler, it mixes and gets innoculated with bacteria to start the decomposition process. When i need food for my worm bins, i grab out handfuls of whatever is in the tumbler and use it.

By continually adding and continually taking some out, the compost is always in some mid-range of development. Not good for the garden, but excellent for worms.

Al, Sierra, pjames,

Thanks for the support/info. I am very new to this hence am at the beginning of the learning curve and want to avoid as many errors for the sake of the worms. My worm bin is next to my espresso machine in the Kitchen. I used to put the grounds directly on the soil of my Rhodo's, Grapes, and Blueberry's but now it is all going into the worm bin. I have a shredder there too and am adding some ground cardboard (alkaline) and ground egg shells (alkaline).
I know I will get through the curve with time and study but have more questions. Can I over do eggshells? The eggshell ph seems to hold at a high 7 and the grounds may be around 6, I am not a chemist but used litmus paper of each ingredient mixed w/equal water. The combo of the shell/coffee is also at a 7.
The other thing I have a compulsion to do is mix the mucky edges into the body of the mix so as to get everything homogeneous and aerated. I hope this is not too detrimental because it allows me to survey what is going on. I also am worried about the bin drying out and add a couple ice cubes to the surface occasionally.
I do feed some scraps to the worms, tomato, lettuce, watermelon, chopped. I saw where freezing was done and tried that but only would use that to delay feedings so as not to give too much too soon.
By the way I didn't know these comments were here even though I checked the box asking to be notified by email if there was a response. Comments Feedback Suggestions are Welcome.

Thanks!!! Gardeniera

PS From the comment about the tumbler, and from reading the worms thrive in a semi-compost microbial rich environment. I try not to add too much green veggie waste (so as not to overdo the compost/heat action) but add coffee/eggshell grounds with out reservation. After stating this I think I may be too frugal with my "green" part and will be adding more to get the compost engine balanced and slightly warmer, even though it may be more than the worms can consume.

I have always understood good composting comes from the right balance of nitrogen and carbon... nitrogen comes from the green things... and carbon from the brown (to WAY over simplify it)

but that is composting... not vermicomposting...

and we seem to be talking about acidity and alkalinity here...

I feed them heaps of coffee grounds, food scraps and seeds/peas. You will find that vermicast moves to neutral or more alkaline regardless of what you add, which I've demonstrated in one of my articles, and it also includes a reference to journalled research.

Here is a link that might be useful: pH of soil from coffee grounds

Shane,

The moving to neutral/alk in vermicompost is great info.

I am interested in something else about coffee grinds, they often develop a mold on the bottom of my grinds storage container. I am not sure how detrimental the mold is and whether I can cultivate a beneficial mold in the process of holding my spent grinds. just a thought : )

The method (looks like powder in the article) of testing pH, is that tried and true? I kinda looked up ways a few years ago and have stuck with it; add water to the vol/wt of the soil, mix, let settle and ck the ph of the water on top.

Nice articles, good work, thanks for the help!!

Mold is part of what happens in a worm bin.

I have picked up coffee grounds from Starbuck's to feed my worms. They don't seem really interested in them until they have gone moldy.

I get the starbucks grounds also. They seem to enjoy knowing they are helping recycle the grounds in a positive way.
If one asks they will sometimes put some aside for people, at least some of the shops will. Not alot, but some is better than none.

I think that when the grounds mold that the acidity is a bit lower, but I'm not authority on that, I just know they like them.

I ask for grounds at convenience stores, starbucks, dunkin donuts, and diners. Some diners, especially one's that want to be ecofriendly, will give you more stuff, if they aren't already using it elsewhere.

I just have to make sure I'm not making a special trip just to be 'ecofriendly' and recycle, cause then I'm using extra fuel, costing me more as well as putting more crap into the atmosphere unneccessarily. That's why I try to get more than may seem useful, so i won't have to run out later for no other reason.

I use coffee grounds to control the ants. So are it is working.

I thought once brewed the grounds have lost the acid. Another thought I had was that once composted it doesn't lower ph of soil & think I read that on the sticker St*rbucks put on the bags or perhaps it was an article from Washington State University garden website.

Either way, I've not noticed a problem with the consistent application of coffee grounds to worm bin & various compost projects around our gardens. We have acidic soil & I apply lime in the fall to combat what the rain washes out each year as well as the acidic fir needles drop down upon everything because we live in a clearing in the forest.

Re: sbryce- I have picked up coffee grounds from Starbuck's to feed my worms. They don't seem really interested in them until they have gone moldy.

I to have gotten mold on my huge bag of grounds that I have picked up from starbuck's, how ever they are also looking a little dry do you think if i added maybe 1 cup of water to the 3lb of grounds would be beneficial and perhaps aid in the gowning of mold or does the mold like the dryness?

"maybe 1 cup of water" IMNHO every system here no matter what they feed should do fine even under a well oxygenated lake of water. Worms can live under well oxygenated water. The trick is to distribute the oxygen well.

On the other hand the advantage of dry grounds is items can be added to the bin that have lots of water like watermellon rinds and other kitchen waste. I would like to see this before adding additional water.

There is no law against pouring in gallons of water. You may want much additional bedding to caputre the drainage and worms that feel the urge to go south. This can be added back to the top of the bin.

When the bin has seemed dry due to lack of rotting wet vegetation I have added a bottle of water. It was usually in February when there were not many kitchen scraps.

I also use water to rinse worms off of the sides of containers I have moved vermicompost out of.

Last month I came into a completely new, unopened can of Folgers coffee. Since I only drink decaf, and since I am a composting whacko, I of course fed it to my worms. I opened up a pocket in my 45-gallon bin and dumped half of it in dry. I sprinkled the rest over the top of my 50-gallon flow-through, again dry. I made sure not to mix it in through out the entire bin, just in case it wanted to heat up. I figured the worms needed to be able to get away from it if it did. It never did. The worms were happily nestling away in the coffee within a couple of days, and the grounds simply absorbed the excess moisture from the rest of the bin. In addition, for the past month or so I've been adding about a gallon or so of used coffee grounds from the local cafe to my bins, and I just dump them in as-is. In six months of doing vermicomposting in this manner, I've gone from two pounds of worms to about 200 gallons worth of bins filled with worms. They're still multiplying like rabbits and I have yet to see a dead worm.

One downside: after the Folgers addition, however, I did notice them getting really jittery, increased VC production, partying till all hours of the night, and demonstrating a distinct inability to follow my directions regarding the flow-through system. At this point, I'm considering putting them on a strict diet of chamomile tea.