Discover How Coffee Grounds Can Perk Up Your Garden

by Simone Abt

(NC)—Canadian gardeners are discovering that coffee grounds offer a valuable source of nutrition for gardens.

Coffee grounds can be used in several ways. Grounds can be applied along with other materials as a side dressing for vegetables, roses, and other plants. They also make an excellent addition to the compost. Grounds can also help with worm bins. Worms fed with coffee grounds will flourish.

Gardeners can use grounds from their home coffee brewing machines, or they can stop by Starbucks to pick up a bag of complimentary coffee grounds. Starbucks offers spent grounds to customers year-round for use in gardens and compost bins.

"Coffee grounds can be a valuable source of nutrition for the garden," says Ben Packard, director of Environmental Affairs for Starbucks. "Reusing coffee grounds in the garden year-round is a great way to avoid disposing of this rich resource from our stores."

According to The Composting Council of Canada, composting not only helps to reduce the amount of waste going to landfills, it produces a valuable soil amendment that can improve the texture and fertility of the soil.

Compost is the single most important ingredient for soil quality and productivity.

Some gardeners even use the grounds to help ward off slugs and snails. The grounds can be used to mulch plants that slugs love to feast on, such as hostas, ligularias and lilies.

Coffee grounds can be applied directly to a garden's acid loving plants such as azaleas, roses or hydrangeas. While coffee grounds may be acidic, adding leaves and dried grass can reduce this acidity. Your local gardening expert can help you decide what is best for your garden.