our starbucks does, as well - in addition to garden bed amendments, i use them when i'm low on greens in my compost pile

~ freshair

I love them. We use them all over the yard. This weekend we spread them on the lawn to green it up. It is my 11 year old's favorite activity. He gets to go out into the yard and throw coffee "dirt" all around. I also use them in our veggie garden.

this is old news where i live; they have been doing that for years.

Also a non-coffee drinker here, coralb, so that's 21 of us now. Thanks for the heads up--I'll call ours since it's not particularly close by. :-)

Joebar,

You are correct that this is an old policy but there are quite a few newbies on this forum who may not know about it. Coffee grounds are so wonderful for the garden and this is such a great arrangement that I wanted to spread the word.

Starbucks will often have a metal "garbage pail" where they package up the grounds very neatly and leave them ... you just wander in and help yourself...

you never know if a gardener was there 5 minutes ago or if there might be several bags. I think I've scored three bags once or twice, usually 0-2...

If you want greater quantities, I found a couple of better alternatives... if you have a small, privately owned coffee shop nearby you might be able to talk them into providing you a lot of grounds in a hurry... if you provide them with an airtight garbage pail that will fit their kitchen space, they might be willing to dump all their grounds right into it... you get two of the cans and swap them out at whatever frequency makes sure they don't get too inconvenienced. This can give you a regular source of grounds in a greater quantity than the hit or miss of dropping into Starbucks.

Even easier is is you work in an office that makes communal coffee. Same process... two containers... when one gets close enough to full, swap it with another and take it home and put it in the compost bin. It may well have filters in it, but most filters are paper and just add celulose to the compost.

I get the used coffee grinds from my local starbucks all the time for my compost.

The used coffee grinds did not help with the slugs for me. Because I travel and stay in a lot of hotels I use the Fresh coffee because the study I read said it had to be UN-USED FULLY LEADED COFFEE to kill the slugs. LOL

If the caffine is brewed out of the coffee they said it did not kill the slugs.

Great info! I knew to put them in the compost pile,but hadn't thought about putting them right in the garden.

The best part of saving the coffee grounds is that you are keeping them out of landfills. Most coffee stores put them in plastic trash bags that dont help them breakdown. I am in the process of seeing the effects on my lawn, I live in Atlanta and the soil is mostly clay so anything to break up the soil helps. Heres to you earthworms. I will post pictures of my results on projectgreenbean.com

Here is a link that might be useful: Project Grean Bean

Good day, what is the percentage to mix coffee grounds in the compost bin or soil in the field? What if i dump huge amounts of coffee grounds in my agricultural field? Would they decompose on its own? Thanks!

Can't speak to putting them in mass quantities on a field, but as for compost...At a carbon to nitrogen ratio (C:N) of 20:1, coffee grounds are near the ideal composting ratio of 25-30:1. Problem is, they can be hydrophobic and repel water if dry or, if wet, too dense to let enough oxygen in the middle. Best to mix with some dried leaves to help add carbon and aid in porosity and aeration.

tj

Cats don't like the smell of coffee grounds, so I put them in beds near the house to make the cats go farther afield. Of course I'm also hoping that 36 years of cars peeing around here is one of the reasons the deer haven't come here yet.
Kathy
I did not even have time to hit the submit button when my DH came in and said he saw a deer at the top of the driveway. I'm buying a crossbow this weekend.

"36 years of cars peeing..."

If I were a deer, I'd want NO part of that weirdness!

Don B.

I had a car that peed oil in my folks driveway when I was a teen. Ticked my dad off, big time.

tj

Must have been a Europeean model.

Sorry.

Thanks for the heads up. I used to get bags of if when I was working for a auto pts. mfg. co. Had coffee machines all over the offices and factory and I had the maintenance people save them for me. Got about 2 bushels a week. But have been retired for 23 yrs now, and I drink only instance coffee. Max is 2 cups a day. Will check into this as I can sure use them when I'll be making my new hosta beds in the spring.

Great info! Thanks. I use a large 65 gallon black sturdy nursery container with a center hole on the bottom and 5 or 6 holes on its sides near the bottom for compost. Just started a few weeks ago! By the way, is it ok to put remains of fried egg whites (remains of Egg Beaters that stick to the pan) (fried without oil) to the compost pile/bin?

neon, When you do that, all kind of meat eater animals would dig in your compost, so I would not put eggs and meat in it.

*slap*

bad fingers! bad fingers!

dave *wanting to respond to deer don*

This may have been posted in another thread oon coffee grounds, but it bears repeating.

This document gives a recap of scientific research that has been done on the subject, a worthwhile read....It's a PDF file.....

Pieter

Pieter : My computer says (via Google Chrome) that this document does not exist. Bernd

try this

Here is a link that might be useful: Will coffee perk up plants?