Kathy Crowley on Composting Your Coffee Grounds in Your Garden
Gardening
SRQ DAILY FRIDAY WEEKEND EDITION
FRIDAY MAY 29, 2020 |
BY BRITTANY MATTIE
If you have a particular gardening question you'd like answered and featured in a future column, email SRQDailyGardening@srqme.com
It's a nice, environmentally-friendly notion to do something with your morning coffee waste besides throwing it in the garbage. For coffee-loving gardeners, coffee grounds are known to be full of soil-friendly nutrients like nitrogen, which is essential for plant growth. However, there are common questions surrounding this highly-acidic organic material--is it good to dump your brewed beans on the entire yard/garden? Kathy Crowley of Crowley Nurseries and Gardens Inc. clears up the misconception and provides a few words of warning.
SRQ: I heard that some people amend their soil by sprinkling the ground above their fruit plants with coffee grounds? We drink quite a bit of coffee and it would be great to put the spent grounds to use. Do all plants like this?
Kathy: Coffee grinds are great around plants and trees in your yard, but make sure you reserve them primarily use for plants that like it on the acidic side. Pit fruits like peaches, plums, pomegranates like only slightly acidic soil. Blueberries, on the other hand, like it real low around 4.5 PH, so it's great for them. On the flower side, azalea, camellia, and gardenias like very acidic soil. So do some quick checking before you start dumping coffee grinds full of caffeine over your whole yard and stunt the growth of some of your other fruits and flowers.
If you have a particular gardening question you'd like answered and featured in a future column, email SRQDailyGardening@srqme.com
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