4 Ways to Reuse Coffee Grounds to Improve Your Garden
Are you a coffee drinker that throws coffee grounds out?
Would you like to keep the slugs and ants out of your garden this spring?
Many people think that you need to invest a lot of money and time into something to make it work. Luckily, there are some tips and tricks that can change this thought process when it comes to gardening. The secret? Coffee grounds.
Welcome back the Beginner Gardener Wednesday. This is our weekly series where we share articles that are specifically for new gardeners.
Today, we would like to share how used coffee grounds can improve your garden. The great thing about coffee grounds is that they are free. You can keep a jar next to your sink and pour your old coffee grounds in it every time you make coffee.
Surprisingly, coffee grounds have a lot of great uses in the garden. Take a look at the list below to see how coffee grounds can benefit your garden.
How Coffee Grounds Can Benefit Your Garden
- Snail, Slugs, Cats and Ant Control
Do you have trouble with these pests invading your garden? A great and natural place to start is to add some used coffee grounds around your garden. If that doesn’t work, fresh coffee grounds or coffee grounds that haven’t been used for coffee will kill snails or slugs on contact.
For extra power, mix together egg shells and used coffee grounds.
- Free Fertilizer
Coffee grounds are an excellent free liquid fertilizer. The nitrogen in them mixed in with soil makes for the perfect plant food. Greenyour.com recommends making this liquid fertilizer by:
- Dilute one half pound can of coffee grounds by mixing it into a 5 gallon container of water.
- Compost
Adding coffee grounds to your compost pile won’t just help with smell. It will also help the pile increase the heat and hold moisture. According to MakeTheList.net, make sure that amount of used coffee grounds only equals 25% of the total weight of you compost pile.
- Acid Loving Plants
There are some plants that thrive on the acid that used coffee grounds provide. Here is a list of those plants provided by Mother Nature Network.com
- Roses
- Azaleas
- Rhododendrons
- Evergreens
- Hydrangeas
- Camellias
- Coffee Grounds for Carrots
By using coffee grounds while sowing your carrot seeds, you will be ensuring that you do not sow the seeds too close together while you are fertilizing the soil. In addition, Green Urban Living states that the grounds will help keep away the carrot fly pest.
The Take Away
Using used coffee grounds to benefits your garden from keeping nasty garden pests away and fertilizing your garden to providing a little love to acid loving plants and enhancing your carrot crop. It is not only a practical solution, it is free. Have you discovered any additional great uses for coffee grounds in your garden? If so, please let us know in the comment section below.
