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You are here: Home / Gardening / How to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden

How to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden

Last updated on: June 3, 2020 By Kaylene Filed Under: Gardening, How To Leave a Comment

White bowl containing spent coffee grounds and a spoon. A fence and grass can be seen in the background. Text overlay says: How to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden.I don’t actually drink coffee but others in my family do so I am lucky enough that I still have access to some coffee grounds.  I have been adding coffee grounds to the compost for a while now but I have always wondered if there were other ways that they could be used in the garden. So I decided to do some reading and see if I could learn a bit more about how to use coffee grounds in the garden.

I initially wondered if there would be any problems with just sprinkling them around the garden. I didn’t know if that would be okay for the plants and the soil. But it seems as if coffee grounds are perfectly safe to sprinkle around plants; they can even be used to deter slugs and snails!

A small pea seedling in the ground with a spoon containing coffee grounds overhead. Coffee grounds have been sprinkled in a ring around the seedling.

Sprinkle coffee grounds around new seedlings to deter snails and slugs.

Actually as it turns out coffee grounds can be a lot more than just a great ingredient for your compost!

Another thing that I was interested to learn is that worms love coffee grounds; they will help to attract worms to your compost and you can also add them to your worm farm!

In fact these is quite a bit of information available online about using coffee grounds in the garden so I will summarise what I have learnt.

 

How to Use Coffee Grounds in the Garden:

 

  • When adding them to the compost use no more than 10 -20 % of the total volume
  • The addition of coffee grounds will not necessarily change the pH of your soil or compost
  • When adding them to your compost remember that coffee grounds are a green compost material so you must therefore add some brown material as well
  • Worms love them so use them in your worm farm
  • You can sprinkle them around your plants and dig them through the top soil a bit
  • They can be used as mulch as long as you only use a thin layer (no more than half an inch as they compact and then repel water) and then cover with straw mulch
  • Sprinkle around seedlings to deter snails and slugs
  • Be careful using coffee ground compost for germinating seeds, some seed germination is supressed by the presence of coffee grounds

 

Overall I found that this was a very interesting topic to read about. So if you would like to do some further reading about using coffee grounds in the garden I can recommend the following links (links updated October 2016):

Backyard Boss: Coffee Grounds for Gardening – 8 Different Uses

WSU,Puyallup Research and Extension Center: Coffee grounds – will they perk up plants? (PDF)

Gardening Know How: Composting With Coffee Grounds – Used Coffee Grounds For Gardening

Green Talk: 5 Ways to Use Coffee Grounds for the Garden

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A Little About Me

Hi, I'm Kaylene, and I'm a keen gardener,budding baker and wannabe DIYer!

I love looking for great ideas online and this is where I share what I find! Read More…

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A white bowl filled with coffee grounds takes up most of the photo. There is a spoon in the bowl and green grass and a fence can be seen in the background. Text overlay says: Tips for Using Coffee Grounds in the Garden.
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