I used to dump my coffee grounds in the garden, but I stopped doing that because I became concerned it was attracting gophers.

What would be the reason to water tomato plants with coffee?

I don't.

Carolyn

If you start, make sure you do it every morning or they will get cranky.

It would be a lot of Nitrogen for a tomato plant. But it's a great addition to the compost pile. ;)

Dave

Caffeinated or Decaf? LOL

In all honesty the water bills are so high around here doing one watering a week in leftover coffee was just a thought for doing something useful with it that would save on water usage at the same time.

Switch to espresso. There are no left overs. :-)

If you aren't composting, which I confess I'm not, plant some hydrangeas, they love to drink my left over coffee and coffee grounds! At least they do in my mostly clay soils. After 3 years of joe, a couple of the plants have actually started to have purplish/blueish blooms instead of bright pink.

In all honesty the water bills are so high around here doing one watering a week in leftover coffee was just a thought for doing something useful with it that would save on water usage at the same time.

****

And a good thought Susan, but in my house there's never any leftover coffee and you must have very very few plants if you can water them all with leftover coffee. ( smile)

Carolyn

Once my plants flower I give them a little java. The little shake they develope from the caffine helps them polinate.

and if you belive that I got some river front property for sale in Iowa that you just got to have.

In all honesty the water bills are so high around here doing one watering a week in leftover coffee was just a thought for doing something useful with it that would save on water usage at the same time.

Since when is coffee cheaper than water? Isn't coffee made out of water? I don't get it. Don't make so much coffee?

My Wife drinks it iced occasionally, YUK!

Like Dave said, good for the compost pile but probably not much else in regular doses.

I would use the columbian coffee since the ads show it with HUGE plants. ;)

Yep... Think i'll have another cup!.....Honey...What happened to the coffee? It was here a minute ago????

Yes Carolyn I'm a real lightweight compared to most people on this forum. I only have about ten plants.
Our area is hit with a hugh surcharge on our water bill placed there by our borough council. It effectively doubles the price for most households. All this because they waited years longer than they should have to upgrade our sewer system.

That wouldn't affect me. I use bottled water when I make coffee. Tap water with good $12/lb. coffee is a waste of good coffee.

We're coffee roasters, so we're always brewing test pots. I hadn't considered using leftover coffee for watering, but I think I might give it a try. I have a hydrangea I'm trying to keep blue, and the azaleas should like it, too.

Brendanh--we do switch to espresso--every day at noon. That's another reason we tend to have leftover brewed coffee:)

Cheers!
JP

jp, I roast too! I haven't for about a year now, (this tomato obsession thing) but I still have bags of green beans from Sweet Maria's that keep calling out to me.

My maters prefer beer ;-)

We all use coffee grounds for growing.
To me it makes sense to water using coffee. Coffee is what you take out from coffee grounds; therefore there is always something lacking in the grounds. You can put that something back by watering with coffee.

(P.S. I am not the owner of Starbucks)

dcarch :-)

My Wife drinks it iced occasionally, YUK!

* * *
Oh, but it's great! We have a thermal carafe so it doesn't taste all burnt after a while. I use the lefetovers this way. Pour it over ice with cream and sugar or whatever is your poison, and you get your caffiene blast on a hot day without drinking a hot drink.
Better yet, for at dessert treat, dump in a scoop of vanilla ice cream for a coffee float.

we have a different concept around here it's called... iced tea. coffee is consumed in the morning and hot!

Anyone who has had an iced latte will not find this to be too foreign.
Think outside the bag!

Coffee is what you take out from coffee grounds; therefore there is always something lacking in the grounds. You can put that something back by watering with coffee.

wut

Now, what about a double mocha cappuccino with whip? Would my toms enjoy them as much as I do? ;-)

They would have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. :-D

I prefer to drink the coffee just before i hoe the garden. Weeds hate it. I learned how to use this stuff years ago.

Susan,

Do you have any wood floors?

Sweep them well, dribble the coffee around and use a sponge mop.

Hmm that is a neat idea! I have also heard using leftover coffee as a hair rinse if you are a brunette. It enhances color. And hair responds better to things more on the acidic side than the alkaline.

My cousin, in college, used to water his jade plant with leftover stale beer after parties. He said it was quite happy. I see no reason not to water with coffee unless you want it iced with some sweetened condensed milk and half 'n half (to die for).

Here in RI there's two brands of coffee syrup you can add to milk to make a nice coffee drink. Autocrat and Eclipse are the brand names. I understand they're not available elsewhere since the concoction is unheard of. Timmy1 knows of this I'm sure. Also used in making 'cabinets'(frappes, shakes, malts, whatever) by whipping coffee ice cream, milk and coffee syrup together. Great with pizza. That's where tomato and coffee really shine.

It adds acidity to the soil, but don't use too often. I use about 1 cup per 2 gallons of water 1 or 2 times weekly at most. I have also read that the acidic soil will keep some harmful pests away.

I thought the whole idea behind watering with leftover coffee (or what I do, which is throw the used coffee grounds around my plants) was to add acidity to the soil. I especially do this around my rose bushes.

I have watered my tomato plants with coffee and they seem to love it. Don't do it too much or you will get a lot of plant and less fruit as I think it is mostly a nitrogen shot.

Ooo

Very amusing old thread :-)

If your soil is on the acid side give them real dark roast. If it is on the alkaline side give the real light roast. hehe

Sey

Hehe

Usually we hear about magic garden sauces that are made of cheap household items. These old threads usually die a well-deserved death. Flour! Epsom salt! Corn meal! But coffee? Really? Might as well get some truffle dust to sprinkle on my plants, or maybe some ground and dried filet mignon. I compost my coffee grounds, but I would never think of pouring coffee on my plants.

Yes, coffee does contain measurable amounts of nutrients (as do LOADS of other cheaper things), but the cost per gram of those nutrients in coffee is fantastically high.

If you have leftover liquid coffee, then use it on your plants. It will provide 0.000000000000 micro ounces of nitrogen and no appreciable or lasting acidity. Organic nitrogen comes from protein and there isn't any in liquid coffee. However, if you have left over coffee grounds, use them directly on the soil as a weak nitrogen fertilizer and host for beneficial microbes that the soil and plants need. You cannot use too much coffee grounds unless you bury the plant in them. Starbucks even gives away their used coffee grounds for "composting," but that's a waste of good coffee grounds. Use them directly.

Other grain types of direct fertilizers include flour and corn meal from the list provided by daninthedirt. Still others include soybean meal, alfalfa pellets and cottonseed meal. Use any of those at a rate of 15 pounds per 1,000 square feet for lawns and trees or a double heaping handful per month on plants.

If you're just going to throw it away, it is unlikely to do any harm to in-ground plants. I doubt it will affect pH in the ground long enough to do any good or harm. In containers... maybe more caution is warranted. I doubt it, though.

If you're just going to throw your coffee away, you made too much. The lesson shouldn't be to fertilize plants with it, but not to make so much!

Flour, corn meal, and other seed meals provide trace nutrients. But responsibly made compost from natural plant residues provides more, and for zero cost.

Coffee grounds applied directly to the garden is fine, but essentially what you're doing is in situ composting.

Now, the power of magic sauces is hard to beat! I think if you recite incantations and do a dance while you're pouring coffee on your plants, it makes it work better!

Meh. It's easy to occasionally end up with some extra coffee, especially if you have people over a lot. Making coffee specifically for garden use would be a giant waste of money. I would just drink it as iced coffee, personally.

We have one of those coffee pots that doesn't cook the coffee. It's thermal. So, coffee tastes great the next day microwaved. I know, for some that's heresy! BUT I've often thought I should dump the rinse water out of the coffee pot onto the garden because it's full of coffee dredges.

Trigger warning. Not necessarily related to tomatoes.

I have never collected any online information about ''watering'' tomatoes with coffee but I once had perhaps a few hundred links to using coffee grounds and coffee in various gardening and houseplant situations.

To read a sampling of these start by Googling

~ albert_135 coffee 2003 site:gardenweb.com ~

The April 1st, 2004 (Deep in the Feb 18, 2003 thread) posting was not an April fools joke but rather a coincidence. It reads in part "1982-1994 Had a Sanseveria (? S. kerkii) in an office cubicle that was
"watered" with nothing but black coffee, about thirteen years.''