Blooming Marvellous Coffee

During a quick pit-stop with the children in a local coffee shop, I spotted they were giving away used or out of date coffee grounds. Curious, (and a fan or quirky ideas) I had to ask what it was all about.

Who'd of thought, they are used to enhance garden compost? I was drawn in, I picked up a bag and trotted of proud as punch, not only was it free, my garden will look amazing!!!

I did as intended and added the washed coffee grounds to my compost and I have to say my flowers have bloomed fantastically. Since doing this I have read conflicting articles on the use of coffee grounds on your garden, so I am only talking as I find.

So why are they so good for the garden? when used in compost the coffee grounds are classed as green waste and break down as any other compostable matter would. The recommended ratio for coffee grounds is 10% of the compost as they can be deemed acidic. Even after the coffee its self has been filtered away, the grounds still contain proteins, acids and carbohydrates which will provide nutrients to the microorganisms that turn your waste into gardening gold, compost. After researching further, adding the grounds to the compost heap will increase microbial activity, which raises the temperature. The benefit of this is that it helps kill many pathogenic bacteria and fungi as well as the seeds of weeds that sneak into the heap from your garden waste.

There are many more great ways coffee grounds con used in the garden, for instance, worms love it, they are attracted to it and carry it deep into the earth. Brilliant, feeding the worms and feeding your soil.

I've not tried this, but it is documented that you can attempt to change the colour of your hydrangea's . You may be aware that more alkaline soil produces pretty pink hydrangea flowers, while acidic soil tend to throw blue flowers. If your plants have pink flowers, feed them some washed coffee grounds and wait to see if they show any signs of changing colour.

I have to admit, this brought the geek out in me, I love eliminating waste, so this was bang up my street (or my garden path!) Try it, I can't promise it'll work for you, but it's defiantly worth a go. 

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