Used coffe

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by jack, Nov 11, 2007.

  1. jack

    jack New Member

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    Hi I'm new I live on a five acer block in Humpty Doo N.T and I wish to try and get in to Permaculture even if it is one step at a time.

    The reason I found this forum, I was looking for what I can do with used ground coffee beans, can you put them on your plants like tea leaf or can you give it to the chooks :?:

    Any other tips for the novice would be great

    Cheers
     
  2. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    g'day jack,

    and welcome.

    coffee grounds are good for the garden so just add them in, my policy if it rots put it in the garden.

    len
     
  3. paradisi

    paradisi Junior Member

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    wonderful stuf for tree ferns, roses, passionfruit and as a soil nutrient.... the trick is not to put too much into the same spot too quickly.

    our grounds get spread around every plant in the garden, each in turn - so that theres a fair while between applications.

    also works well in the compost if you have too much
     
  4. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    Hi Jack,

    Chooks won't touch coffee, so no worries there. It does go great right onto the soil in a garden. You can also add it to compost...

    Goood luck!

    Christopher
     
  5. Tas'

    Tas' Junior Member

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    Coffee grounds are also supposed to be good for keeping snails off the garden.
     
  6. dylanz

    dylanz Junior Member

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  7. gardenlen

    gardenlen Group for banned users

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    over in the US of A gardeners go crazy over getting the stuff from what i read on their forums, so much so that 'stars' in the sky gets 'bucks' now instead of giving it away, and those same coffee bars put their ground aside over here for those in the know to grab.

    so if yo are near coffee shops maybe get some 5 gallon buckets and go collect this seamingly very useful resource.

    len
     
  8. beherit

    beherit Junior Member

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    we've been putting ours around the tomatoes for a while now - have heard mixed opinions on whether it does/doesn't have negative effects on the tomatoes but we don't use enough to notice too much of a difference either way...we only extract a handful of doppio ristretto's per day in this household [the focus here is on quality not quantity :wink:]

    on the odd day which we use the dripolator we toss the grounds straight into the compost, provides a good fist sized shot of nitrogen to the heap & the filter liners break down very quickly.
     
  9. bazman

    bazman Junior Member

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    Some Info on coffee ground waste, I add about 50lt a week from a local coffee shop, It either goes into the compost or around my citrus trees.

    Spent Coffee Waste
    Parameter Value
    Carbon 33.6 %
    Hydrogen 4.2 %
    Nitrogen 1.14 %
    Sulfur 0.03 %
    Moisture 40 %
    Ash 0.66 %
    Oxygen 20.37 %
    GCV 3500 K Cal/kg
    Bulk Density 640 kg/m3 @60% Moisture.
     
  10. becsmile

    becsmile New Member

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    I have been adding used coffee to my strawberry plant for a short time and I didnt notice much difference so I thought I would add tea...Turns out tea with fruit in it though is not a good idea because it goes moldy and within days my plant was dead :(. Oops
     
  11. rhancock

    rhancock Junior Member

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  12. TropicalRose

    TropicalRose Junior Member

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    Coffee grounds are supposed to deter ants too, so sprinkle thickly around anything getting infested.
     
  13. Ichsani

    Ichsani Junior Member

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    Hi Jack

    I have used a lot of coffee grounds in my garden but I compost it first with other materials (makes lovely dark compost).

    I did experiment using it as a mulch layer (~ 3 cm thick uncomposted) around my gotu kola (because I can get ~30 kg a week if I want) worked well for about 6 months and then stuffed my soil in that bed :oops: :evil:

    Poor plants started to show signs of pretty much every nutrient deficiency that I could identify :oops: . Checked the pH which had dropped from its normal ~7 down to 4.5-5, so I essentially acidified the soil and then washed all the nutrients out...took a good 6 months to fix after that!...they do say that no experiment is a failure.

    A little (a few handfuls or more spread over time) doesn't hurt, but the amount that I put on was overkill.

    (Uncomposted) coffee would be a great way to decrease the pH of alkaline soil though, not that you'd find much of that in the NT.

    For large quantities, compost is best
    :)

    Ichsani
     
  14. christopher

    christopher Junior Member

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    I have killed several healthy choko plants (sechium edule) with direct coffee grounds.... It took me a while to figure this out.... derrr.
     

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