Thanks to Mariska Rietveld
A by-product of a nice pot of coffee is the well-known coffee grind. Before you throw it in the trash, remember that coffee grounds come in handy in the garden! Even if you have limited outdoor space, such as a cozy balcony, you can garden with coffee grounds. How does that work and what are the benefits? Read all about reusing coffee grounds usefully and smartly here.
Benefits of coffee grounds in the garden
If you see coffee grounds in the filter like this, it may not seem like an extremely useful product, but appearances are deceiving. The residual product from your own espresso machine has useful properties that help your garden to bloom! No matter how small or large it may be.
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Plants love it
Most garden plants like a bite of coffee grounds. Be careful with potted flowers, but plants that are in the soil or fall under the vegetable garden category do well on coffee grounds. The coffee residues contain substances such as Potassium and Magnesium, which plants use for healthy flowering.
The plants will therefore not grow faster, but more beautifully. Finally, unlike liquid coffee, coffee grounds are PH neutral. This means that the acidity in coffee grounds is at a level that does not affect the plants. Use only coffee grounds, and not regular coffee. Simply sprinkle some coffee grounds on the soil around the plant and toss it into the soil.
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Chasing away snails and ants
Snails sometimes want to snack on the plants in a garden and an ant infestation is also rarely good news. In these cases, too, coffee grounds are an effective means of solving your problem. Coffee grounds are toxic to snails, and the ants are not a fan of them either. To scare away ants, make a natural barrier with the coffee grind.
How to use coffee grounds in the garden?
Before we start sprinkling coffee grounds in the garden or on the balcony, we look at how to use coffee grounds the smartest. The benefits are already there, but the application is also not unimportant. For example, what kind of plants you have in the garden and how much coffee your household produces makes a difference.
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Wooden worm boxes
In wooden worm bins you can get rid of a relatively large amount of coffee grounds. Not only the plants, but also the worms feed on it! A wooden worm bin is a kind of self-maintaining recycling system for garden and kitchen waste. In this system, the worms serve as compost makers and you have no problems with them at all.
These are fine functional properties, but the eye also wants something. The wooden worm boxes are also good for that. For example, the façade box has a sturdy wooden look, you can decorate with nice plants as desired and you can even use it as a bench.
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Compost barrels
Does smart reuse of coffee grounds appeal to you, but do you lack green fingers? Maybe a compost bin is something for you. You can compare them to the worm bins, but the compost bins will cost you less work. You do not have to keep plants in it and in a self-aerating vessel you do not have to scoop the soil.
Another advantage and a good reason to choose a compost container: a compost container processes more waste than the worm bin. It may be called a barrel, but the wooden compost barrels also have a tough look that suits a stylish garden. If, like me, you still use a filter coffee maker, then you are an excess of coffee grounds anyway. That’s good!
Little outdoor space? Start a vertical garden!
As much as we would like to, not everyone has a spacious garden. Fortunately, you can also go in all directions on a balcony, as long as you are creative with the space. The classic balcony barrel is a good example of this. You then have a cool barrel that takes up little surface area, space for nice plants at different heights and your own compost place in one!
The balcony barrel is a nice start, but a real vertical garden goes one step further. On the balcony you can easily create it with a wall of plant bags. You simply hang the plant bags in rows above each other and can then put nice flowers in them or even start your own vegetable garden. That coffee grounds then come in handy as compost.
In short, there is a smart and fun way for every garden, terrace or balcony to not let your coffee grounds go to waste. In fact, you get a nicer place in return!