Don't Forget This Critical Ingredient When Composting With Coffee Grounds
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
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In this video I'll tell you about the critical ingredient research shows should be added to your compost along with coffee grounds.
gogreencompost.com
Check out the research study "Evaluation of three composting systems for the management of spent coffee grounds" ► www.sciencedir...
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Thanks for watching everyone!
Wood Chips Are Great For The Garden, But Don't Compost THIS Kind! ► th-cam.com/video/AhcxRB-s-Fc/w-d-xo.html
Agreed! Until our horses both died in 2020, every day got a wheelbarrow of mixed horse manure and pine shavings (including in particular those that were urine-soaked) added to the vegetable garden, first as mulch, and then the following spring, all roro-tilled into the soils. The garden produced like gangbusters, and even in dry times the soil remained moist!
I like your sincerity. There are better systems for this emergency if you want learn them.
I consult.
#asiflifeonEarthMatters
I run a small independent coffee shop in a rural community. We have people who want coffee grounds bring in a 5 gallon bucket with their name and number on it. We keep them lined up in rotation in the back hallway and call the customer when their bucket in full and ready to go. Also I get lots of produce from happy farmers.
great comment Justin. you made my day! I should see if my local coffee shop will do that with me.
Fantastic, if every coffee shop did this, imagine the amount of fertile soil that would be created!
I was one of those taking coffee grounds from Justin Davis when preparing my raised keyhole garden. Imagine my surprise seeing his comment when I was on a youtube stroll!
@@dakotahflannery798 that's awesome, small world of us composters! 😀
@@stevoblevo most Starbucks stores gives the used grounds away daily
Thank you for this. I add my coffee grounds with the unbleached filter paper to the blueberry bed to maintain soil acidity. I no longer feel lazy for not removing the grounds from the filters. 😊
I use the filters too, mostly because I dump them with the grounds into the kitchen container for bits when I’m only half awake!
It's been my understanding that spent coffee grounds don't add to the acidity as it all goes into the coffee. I've ground a bunch of beans and added fresh grounds to my blueberries but I've no real way, besides a pH tester, to tell if it makes a difference either way.
You can also add your coffee filter if it is unbleached natural fiber. Works when you don't have cardboard.
Oh yes definitely throw the filters in too!
Good idea!!
Mmyeah good idea good idea
@@GoGreenCompost But also to oblige the slow-down process so it doesn't damage the worms as much? :)
I have been throwing in my coffee filters for years and I don't think they are unbleached and my worms love them and are fine.
Nice job Andrew, I've been Vermicomposting since 2009 in a Can-O-Worms. I started a TH-cam channel in 2020. It started out as a garden channel and has evolved into a combination garden/worm/life. I do love my worms and have 6 bins at this point.
Thanks for the suggestion on going to Starbucks 👩🌾👍
Do the worms survive winter outside or do we take them indoor?
@@eulabergado6927 mine have survived the winter but I am in CA so the temp doesn't drop to freezing for long periods. I would cover my bins in clear plastic during the rain to solar heat the bins. Leave room for air by placing a couple of 5 gal buckets at the corner between bins to tent the plastic. I also did lower the soil moisture ratio making it a bit drier during higher humidity periods. They seemed happy and were thriving even in winter but again winter is not weeks of freezing where Im at.
There are 6 Starbucks within a ten minutes drive from my formerly low organic matter soil garden spot. Two of them put only coffee grounds in green bins. Often they will contain perhaps 1,000 pounds of old grounds each. Score! Was able to grow monster okra, squash, pepper and potato crops the second year of composting.
Thanks for the tip! I got a little nervous because I use coffee grounds in my worm compost hotel, ground compost stop and in my garden compost tumbler. But I always use cardboard and leaves. Wiping my head from relief. 😂. My worms are happy!!
The coffee grounds are nearly neutral. The worms do benefit from the mixture but I haven't found them to die from too much of a good thing. They live in the bottom of my pile of coffee grounds. Too much water and heat can kill them, though.
A nicely edited, totally watchable, and very useful video! I really appreciated your English, which is correct and precise throughout, as well. This is intelligent, but simple. Good luck to you!
thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!
This winter, we are using our hugelkultur garden as a compost heap....I will definitely start using coffee grounds (a trip to StarBucks might help) and shredded cardboard... should be a neat experiment.
I use coffee grounds all year , but needed this information ..thank you 🇨🇦
Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching!
I heard the best compost mix is coffee grounds, leaves and cut grass.
Tried this idea with eggshells and got a 'ton' of them from a breakfast restaurant.
A good idea
Good idea. Also, I’m checking how accurate google results are: How many egg shells in a ton?! ;-)
I learned something new. Thanks for the video
I used empty toilet paper rolls to segregate the seeds at planting, and keep track of where they’re supposed to grow. (Helps me remember where I planted them!) I didn’t realize that the cardboard decomposition was good for the soil, too. I guess that explains why I got so many cucumbers 🥒 this year.😊
I much with shredded paper. Not particularly attractive but not awful and when it’s turned over in the fall the earthworms eat it!
that's a really cool idea, thanks for sharing that!
Cucumbers produce ridiculous growing in anything
Moldy wood pulp
@@hezmydaddyo2722I love that look personally.
Andy--a friend of mine here in Louisiana raised red wigglers for fishing and also to put a little spending money in his pocket---he used coffee grounds but one thing he used was cornmeal-- his worm beds weere prolific and the worms were large..
I met a guy who has a micro brewery and I was thinking of using his spent grain to do composting with but I am not sure if this would be the same results and also I think spent grain might be sticky.
johnnyhay,
I'm not computerwise.
How do you type and at same time cross it out ?
( in simple, non-computer geek talk )
Thanks
☆
@@fjb4932 might wanna google it his comment is over 2 years old.
Great to know! Thank you.🌹
When I was a kid my grandma and grandpa through all their coffee grounds outside the porch and that's where we got all of our worms
*minimum* 1 cup =). Sometimes it exceeds that by quite a large margin lol
Hi, I just found your channel. Thank you for the information you provided.
Happy New Year
In my area Starbucks sets out the bags of coffe grounds in a box or can so you don't even need to ask. If there's grounds, you can help yourself.
Niiiiice. I likethose cages in the back. Will check out the channel to see if there is more info about them. I still have a huge pile of covid cardboard and, I live near a juice bar. You've given me an intriguing idea for an experiment. I love using leaves. They are the great equilizer.
I've tried the Coffee Ground method.. Update : what you want to do is take your used coffee grounds and re-run the grounds again in water and use the water to water your plants..My Plants love to be watered with coffee water. only once a month .
I usually go to Starbucks and get a ton of coffee grounds. Nice people too!
Tell your Starbucks that you want the filters too!
Mine uses unbleached,brown filters so that will give you some carbon and Starbucks is happy they don't have to sort them out!
Great idea, thank you!
Yep I use the filter paper also I just rip it up and plop it around my blueberries. So I guess the plants get the extra carbon they need .
Do you think brown paper like old school grocery bags would work? Do you worry about the glue used in cardboard?
Good information. Thank you.
Thank you for the video. I'm getting excited by the prospect of a more convenient way to make compost.
I'm searching the info for an hour now but can't find it. Do you know how much compost 1 kg of spent coffee ground gives you?
I've seen that the usual food waste output is 15-25%. Looking at coffee grounds, there's not much water or soft matter that'll be lost in comparison to other greens during the composting process. Am I wrong? So to be optimistic, can I hope to get more than 250g compost from 1 kg coffee grounds?
We've been feeding our worm coffee for a long time. They seem to be fine. Thanks for the information. Maybe they could be better. I want to know where you got that bin material behind you.
Fantastic video Thank You
So should I avoid spreading coffee grounds on top of my garden soil?
I was just throwing my spent coffee grounds out into the yard, which had a slight downhill. One day, I noticed a mouse. and then I saw him again, and again. One day I slept in, and drank coffee later, when I went to throw the grounds over the deck, the mouse was yelling at me.
Thank you for sharing this great info. Adding cardboard to compost is a popular suggestion seen on several videos but I, now, have to ask; is the glue in the cardboard healthy for worms or for soil for those who wish to grow organically? Perhaps once upon a time it would have been but is era of cheapening quality makes one wonder. Open to any comments. Thank you kindly.
I think it's probably OK as long as it's just plain brown cardboard and not the kind with printing or dyes.
I compost coffee grounds with pine needle,and it seems to boost the earthworms population.
They are common garden worms,not the red wiglers.
I like all the worms =)
@@GoGreenCompost
Hi,what l meant is,may be it is afecting the population of some kind of worms but not others.
Or afects them in different ways,
Would be something interesting to know.
@@pepeespanol3312 It could be! I think that the worms in the study were red wigglers. It's also likely that the pine needles you are composting with the grounds add the necessary carbon to mitigate any negative affects from the grounds =)
I have found this too...and composted pine needles is fantastic soil...plants seem to love it.
also I have composted pine needles with regular earthworns and they seem to love it but I have also thrown in some with red wrigglers...and they seem to love it. Sometimes if I feel I need to break down something faster (due to something looking a little too ugly that I added to compost) I add some pine needles. I am not sure why but it seems to help the health of the soil. I don't even know why pine needles work to break down things faster too because studies have shown that pine needles after dropping on the ground actually lose their acidity.
so in this video you have your geo bins on plastic forklift pallets. why 4? better aeration? avoiding root penetration?
You nailed it, better aeration! It also provides a nice level surface to set them up on and keeps them a bit more orderly
Hi 👋new to your channel ☺loved the content ! Thank you for sharing 😍
Welcome!!
Nice video! Why don't worms like coffee grounds?
Have u tried makin carbon out of compressed coffe grounds
Anyone living in Australia… Bunnings cafes provide coffee grounds.
Wondering where you get those large aerated compost bins that are back by the fence line in your video...? They look like they would be light weight and easy for someone to manage...?
Those are Geobins! They're awesome, very easy to move around, roll up and store, set up etc. I got mine on Amazon, here's a link amzn.to/34k8k5c (affiliate link)
@@GoGreenCompost Thank you.
So cardboard is a carbon, how about dry leaves? Would that work the same as cardboard? And how about the "brown" paper filters used with the coffee grounds, would that be the same as well? Curious
Leaves are high in carbon. I moved another 13 wheelbarrows of them to make leafmould yesterday. I make a lot each year. Some leaves are better for this than others, I read recently. Black Walnut isn't good for composting. Some leaves have higher calcium than others. All things I recently found out... probably again as I read and forget a lot!
Is Starbucks giving out spent coffee grounds at this time? I know a lot of stuff has changed this past year due to the pandemic and I just wanna make sure they didn’t cut out Grounds for Your Garden.
Where I live, every Starbucks is different. Most have them available. One doesn’t
The Starbucks near me is awesome! Anytime I want grounds I just call, and they put a big bag outside their back door for me to pick up
Sadly card board has mineral oil in it. But it isn't affecting everything that seemingly. But surely natural stuff isn't harming the beneficial bacterias that much like card board could. Thanks! Great video though.
I use a paper shredder on cardboard.
I've heard that lemon rinds and other citrus is bad for worms, too.
It's true, they don't like the stuff. Anytime I've added it to my bins it molds over and remains untouched by the worms. I suspect the essential oils in the citrus rind are irritating to the worms.
Imagine spraying a worm with orange cleaner. Citric acid is acid.
I've been seeing worms in my compost pile which I've been more than happy to leave alone but they look an awful lot like jumping worms. They don't act like them, they don't thrash around but they have the white band all the way around their body like Asian jumping worms. Not sure what to do with them.
My compost is in contact with the ground so the worms can migrate out if the heap is not to their liking.
When the pile gets cooler or ph settles down they come back with a vengeance. No escape route, they die.
Worms you are using need more space to populate. They populate fast and need at least a bathtub worth of space. So they won’t die once you them their space
Instead of cardboard, how about newspaper?
Is the ink bad?
Only coloured ink is bad.
Those Starbuck's coffee grounds are not from organically grown coffee. Coffee is the most heavily pesticide, herbicide, and fungicide laden food crop sold in America. I drink organic coffee and use those grounds in my garden, but I leave the free toxic grounds at Starbucks.
I recently watched this expose about that company using child s1avery too
It tastes better with pesticide and child labor. It’s all about the terroir. 😘👌
Recent research indicated that cardboard has forever chemicals….
Newspaper!
Whatever you haven't figured out yet, you will figure out in short order. Videos like these really add to the knowledgw base of the gardening world.Thanks for an excellent video! Subscribed = ✓
I'm in chicago and I asked a couple coffee joints for grounds and they looked puzzled. After a couple other requests I found a dunkin that has been giving me more than I could imagine. I could barely lift the bags.
Awesome, I bet in a densely populated area like that one coffee shop probably produces a heck of a lot of grounds each day!
does chicago have a big drug addict problem? I ask because I am in Vancouver, BC and I used to be part of a community garden and I used to walk over to the Starbucks and collect their bags that were their old coffee grounds that they would put in the used up bean bags and go and dump those in my garden. One day I went and they stopped handing out those bags because some junkies were taking them and selling them to people at discounted prices pretending they had bought the beans and just needed the money. So they told people to bring their own container but they had some junkies manage to get other bags and do same thing so they didn't want to do it unless they knew for sure it was for gardening so then I started walking over there with a wheelbarrow and would tell them they could come with me or come visit me. They let me take them but I am wondering if these confused places are just scared of situations like these happening. Don't get me wrong. Drug addicts I have no issue with and I worked alongside a number of addicts in the garden who gardened to keep sober but I am looking at how businesses might have reasons why they don't want to do things....and of course they just might not understand the concept that one mans garbage is anothers treasure.
@@moniquevandeplas5210 Every city is full of addicts large and small. Yes chicago is full of tens of thousands of addicts.
That study about the decrease of earthworms is pretty interesting because I've kinda found the opposite. I live in the Pacific Northwest with dry summers and very wet winters. I save my grounds into a quart yogurt container and every few days I dump them over the side of my deck onto a dedicated coffee ground pile, where they sit undisturbed. Underneath that pile is my typical PNW heavy clay loam soil, not a compost-rich garden bed. If I disturb that coffee ground pile at all during the wet season, I find it's chock full of red wrigglers that somehow found their way to that pile. When it gets dry and hot they disappear. I'm wondering what's different about my environment from a compost pile that would make such a difference.
Me too
I think it's just the moisture level. If you can keep it moist the worms should stay. It's worth a try.
I have found that Costco is a great source of cardboard. They use huge sheets on their pallets...no tape and label stripping! And they shred very easy!
great tip, thanks!
Furniture stores have lots of it and they are getting nothing for it recycling now.
Looks like we are after the same sheets of carboard from Costco! I hope to visit my local branch before you will take them all! 😀
haha...funny I was just thinking of about this as I use these sheets as a tarp when laying out my compost but then after I use them and they get too wet I throw them in the city compost but if I have a lot of residue compost on them I shred and add back to my composter.
Those big sheets would be great to lay down and then put wood chips on. It would suppress weeds nicely. I need to ask for them.
Also don’t use too much coffee grounds. It really heats up the vermicopost. . Cardboard it’s carbon rich while coffee grounds are nitrogen rich
When I started adding coffee grounds to my compost I found a football size clump of worms and when I separated them there was the ball of coffee grounds in the middle. Shiniest and fastest worms I have ever seen. They actually glowed.
"Mom, grandpa is telling his worm story again" 😁
@@GoGreenCompost 😂❤️
I have red wigglers on the bottom of my pile of coffee grounds I collect over the winter before I make my piles.
WOW!!🐛💫🤩 I used to put in my compost and soil. I wasn't sure if I should use it with dogs and cats around. I recently read that it's great for putting in water and wiping it on your pets and leaving on for a few minutes then wash off. It works as a natural bug repellent... Thank you for your wonderful help tips! I've been missing the great results from having the worm castings in my soil☺
You turned them caffeine junkies!
In simpler terms diversify your amendments to either type of compost system. If you look at nature what you see id diversification of materials dropped to the soil level during the year. What you are doing with any form of compost or mulch is aiding nature in the process your reward is that you speed it up.
If the excess is green Nature lets it leach and bleach turning it brown. If the excess is brown the lichens and microbes us it as fuel and convert it to base nutrients for use. Sheet composting (organic mulches) use a combination of the two to make the nutrients available to the plants (Back to Eden method)
thanks, I've always used coffee grounds and now I'm gonna mix it with cardboard.
Makes total sense. I think that sometimes we forget that coffee grounds are a green additive and the cardboard is a brown additive. I am just about to liberate my first compost where I used some of the coffee grounds I get from a coffee shop for free. You are the first person who I have seen do something similar to me. I use green plastic mesh in a cylinder in various places in the garden, so I always have compost near my three major growing zones.
Sure wished I lived near you -I’m tired of emptying K-pods.😅
@@alliecat9607 no Starbucks near by?
Wow great info! I’m a first time viewer and already use my coffee grounds (and sometimes Starbucks too), but I’ve been putting them directly on the soil where I have my plants (I mostly container-grow). But I’m starting a small compost area in my backyard so this video is right on time 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Glad it was helpful, thanks for watching! 😀
Can you not just add the coffee grounds directly to the soil around your plants?
My worm population are going gang busters and I give them all our coffee grounds. I may not have noticed the affect because I also put into the kitchen pot toilet rolls, torn mail, tissues, paper napkins and sometimes small bits of cardboard. Kitchen scraps the chickens can’t eat too. I must have been automatically balancing it for them.
Will have to try adding them to the compost. I HAVE been using them as mulch in a specific garden area - but here in Maine, they have NOT molded and decomposed, but just accumulated as a kind of brown organic sand on the soil surface. We apparently don't have the right mold - at least at our farm - to get them to decompose. The only way I can get that process even started at all is to admix bread crumbs and other readily-decaying materials that will start a mold culture. We also don't have to worry that much about the earthworms here, either. None of those we have are native - not one - and in some areas, they're destroying the leaf litter layer in the forests. Took me a while to realize the mantra "earthworms are great for the garden!" isn't always true! Plus, now we have the "Chinese jumping worms," which are in some areas wreaking environmental havoc.
earthworms are still native to North America. In Fact maine has had native worms before the populations died out during the last interglacial. They immediately rehabitated the region and not even all worms were killes during the ice age many nemotodes can survive freeze.
@@infernaldaedra ... Native earthworms in North America, fine. But not in Maine. (And an Interglacial is the time period BETWEEN major glacial events.) Sorry, but when you're considering Maine, there's NO evidence for earthworms in the fossil record. North America has been glaciated some 20-25 times in the last 2.5 million years, and there is NO evidence for earthworms in that time interval - because there are virtually no known DEPOSITS in Maine from before maybe 16,000 years ago (and I've worked on two of those four known older sites). You're operating entirely from speculation. ALL earthworms now found in "the wilds" of Maine are introduced - from nursery stock, deliberate introductions, or fishing bait turned loose at the end of the day. And Nematodes are no more earthworms than snakes are.
The study you referenced wasn't detailed to know for sure, but I bet the probelm could also have been solved by simply feeding the worms correctly... by placing all new food in a corner which isolates the effects of food decomposition to that corner and doesn't contaminate the entire worm bed. This way, when the worms prefer a more pH neutral environment, they can retreat to their own bedding.
In fact, I would say my recommendation is the only sure way of avoiding a worm herd killing. You can mix more carbon into the food as you recommend but it's hard to specify the exact proportions.
I throw my toilet paper and paper towel tubes in with my kitchen scraps, which includes crushed eggshells and coffee grounds.
Mix that with some shredded leaves or straw and you can get some good compost. Keep it moist.
Good information! I also get eggshells from a small breakfast restaurant nearby.
Great tip!
Don't exagerate with the egg shells. They are mineral, worms can't use them in any way, they add a lot of calcium to the soil, which some plants don't tolerate well. They also influence pH - too many egg shells and your compost/soil will become alkaline.
@@a0flj0 Thank you. I distribute them over very large area
When slugs crawl over egg shells it cuts them and they die. Wondering if it does the same to worms.
@@louisestaats234 I work with slugs! Can’t get them to do a damned thing!
So basically you need some brown (carbon) to balance out the green (nitrogen). Composting 101.
Very sincere, thanks for the good content.
My pleasure!
I just throw the paper filters in with the coffee grounds...worms seem to love the paper filters....also you know what I do in summer? I go to places where people are throwing out the corn husks and the strings of the husks...my worms love that. Apparently you can boil that corn silk too and use it as a blood sugar regulator and you know what's crazy. Some people must have caught on because I saw some people selling the stuff.
Maybe it was too hot for the worms? I find coffee grounds are great at making compost hot and for long periods, earthworms love them, as do cockroaches, which I found to be a problem. I stopped composting cardboard when I read about phthalates, which are bad, even your lovely untreated cardboard is made from recycled glossy paper which has phthalates in it, this is a thing because phthalates are endocrine disruptors.
Phthalates might not be as big of an issue as you think in your compost.
There are quite a few studies showing the efficacy of micro organisms at breaking down Phthalates. Check out this one titled: "Biodegradation of phthalate esters in compost-amended soil"
ntur.lib.ntu.edu.tw/bitstream/246246/176909/1/
Here is a quote from the paper's conclusion:
"For the various experiments, the percentage of PAE remaining in
the soil samples was tracked over time (Fig. 1). In the sterile soil
samples, 91% of the DBP and 88% of the DEHP remained after
20 d. The data indicate that DBP and DEHP degradation in soil
are the result of microbial action. In the non-sterile samples, DBP
was completely degraded after 9 d, and DEHP was degraded after
15 d"
My experience with spent coffee grounds in composting is as a major source of green, Carbon-nitrogen ratio around 1:20, pH is 6-6.5 so ideal. Looked at cardboard as a major consistent source of carbon. But issue is time cost of sorting. So just use diversity of carbon; wood chip, spent hay, seasoned manures. Trick is break it down as much as you can, turn often at thermophilic stage (microbes heating) and introduce your physical composters after this to balance out the compost. Takes 6-12 months to make great compost. Half science, half commonsense. Bit like winemaking ?
Thank you for the video! How much of that huge bag of coffee grounds are you adding to each of your compost piles?
The Starbucks inside the Target my wife used to go by in Durham, NC would bag the used grounds in 5 pound bags and put them in a basket for anyone to take near their register.
Amazon donates a lot of carbon to my yard. I'm appreciative.
Yeah, who do we email to ask them to use better/less tape and stickers to make it more compostable...?
@@stevecarter8810 and now the damn paper bags from Whole Foods grocery pickup/delivery. Now the paper seems coated.
Ha ha good to hear, this is the best way to recycle these boxes.
Yes removing the plastic tape does get a bit tedious after a while.
@@Fragrantbeard is it coated now? that's a shame. I haven't experienced that yet.
Also my experience with Amazon is they use the right tape which is like paper and breaks down nearly as fast as the cardboard does.
Who needs chipdrop and mulch when Amazon gives me cardboard?
And the worms work 10x faster because they're hopped up on caffeine
lmao get to work wormies!
Have you tried composting only coffee grounds with some 10 or 20 percent normal garden soil?
I compost tea grounds with clay and it's ready in a month to use.
Good point because you need greens and browns.
Thank you (from Australia) for these tips!
My grounds get moldy overnight in the compost container in the kitchen
What ratio do you recommend of cardboard to coffee?
I put mine straight onto the soil then dig it in and I am talking 20 pounds a week ,worms all over the place
When they done the study on coffee grounds, did they use fresh or used coffee grounds because fresh coffee grounds is very acidic.
How does this apply to scattering coffee grounds on soil for plants? Presumably this wouldn't disrupt the worms in small quantities?
probably not, but you could always mix in some shredded leaves or mulch and sprinkle the mix
@@GoGreenCompost thank you!
Can you mix the coffee ground with black earth or top soil before planting any vegetable seedling
Compost attracts Black Soldier Fly larvae (Hermetia Illucens) which quickly devour the coffee grounds in your compost. Don't be alarmed! They mutate into Black Soldier Flies which do not have any moving mouth parts. The Black Soldier Fly larvae are also very nutritious and can be feed to you chickens if you have them or to the fish in your pond.
I wish I had some chickens, I get a lot of black soldier fly larvae at certain times during the year
hard not to be alarmed seeing those guys eh? just as challenging as in Luke 2:10 I'd bet. lol
I have loads of BSF larvae in my compost bin and they avoid the grounds along with the citrus. I suppose if there was nothing else in the bin they might eat the grounds, but I haven't seen that yet. Plus, I have a pile of grounds composting separately from the bin and no BSF larvae have ever appeared in it. In fact, grounds seem to deter all sorts of insects including vermin. I think the smell must repel them. There is probably still a small amount of caffeine left in them which is a natural insect repellent. Even though they are considered a green, they are not nearly as high in N as grass clippings or kitchen scraps because the compost piles using just grounds as the green source don't heat up nearly as much. None of this stops me from collecting grounds though from my local SB's. Grounds are a year round source of greens unlike other sources which is crucial because I always have an overabundance of browns and I appreciate their repellent properties not just in the compost but the garden as well.
@@GoGreenCompost you can sell them
@@stevoblevoor Exodus 8:24
Would you recommend just doing a separate pile of coffee grounds and cardboard and let that breakdown before adding it to your larger compost/worm pile? Thanks for the info!
And broken down leaves and saw dust from local sawmill I can’t imagine it’s bad unless it’s to much percentage wise and or if you use pine straw which we don’t but good to know and makes sense to keep an eye on ph levels which we bought a meter for ph and moisture with long rod for checking bins and lime can lower if it gets to high so much still to learn🤔😁😎💪🙏😇
Pure coffee grounds left in a plastic bag outside on the ground and weeks later it was Full of Woggims, likewise my compost bin, crammed with woggims.
Isnt this just an extension of the general compositing rule of balancing your greens and browns to get the right C:N ratio?
Also, Starbucks serve dirty black water - not coffee 😉
🎉🎉🎉🎉
I found the coffee was upsetting my worm farm, so I created a whole new bin just for coffee grounds and then put a handful of worms in, to see how they would go, whether they would evolve to suit their environment. But I also added some cardboard and hessian bags or things like that.
And they've been there seemingly happy for years.
But I also tend to keep my coffee moist in plastic bags for a few weeks to months before I add into the bins, I think this tends to let mould do the first part of the breakdown - and I think it may eradicate some of the nasty chemicals.
Good timing! I actually had planned to add a bag of coffee grounds to my 'tumbler' compost bin tomorrow so I will be sure to add plenty of cardboard with it. I would have been upset if I had accidently killed all my worms if I had added only the grounds.
Just add the filter paper with the grounds. Works the same as cardboard.
Great information. Luckily I already do that. I drink a five cup pot a day and I include not only the grounds but also the paper filter. Cardboard is so plentiful and free. We have a DOLLAR GENERAL CLOSE BY AND THEY USE TONS OF IT. Sorry for the caps. Havagudun bud and thanks.
Thanks so much! Great video, so I looked up earthworms, Wikipedia says an 'terrestrial invertebrate'. For some reason I thought that maybe the die off of the worms, could be the lack of pumpkin spice latte? Thanks again, I will save my coffee grounds for sure. Will subscribe now.
We drink organic coffee and use those grounds in our compost. I thought pesticides were high in growing coffee. Don't I need to be concerned when getting grounds from a coffee shop that doesn't use organic coffee?
I enjoyed the info, but isn't all compost supposed to have a higher ratio of browns to greens? I don't have vermicompost, but even then I always see people putting cardboard and brown material in it. I have a heavy coffee ground compost going in a tumbler right now, so not worried about the worms since they can't reach it, but I'm more worried about others saying the caffeine is bad and can suppress plant growth. But the info is all over the place, anyone know about that? I probably have 20 lbs of coffee grounds in there with a lot of shredded leaves and small sticks.
I have never had problems with my vermicomposter - nice healthy worm population. I think the reason is that I just add my paper coffee filters with residual grounds after I shake out the excess grounds into another pail. This I empty into my other aerated compost binds with the kitchen and garden waste. Sometimes I do add carbon when I think I am low on carbon in the mix.
I agree with you. I've kept a 3 tier worm bin since 2008. We drink 16 cups/daily. I put in the grounds, filter, banana peel and strawberry tops 7 days/week. I can't tell if it is slowing them down, but I have to clean them out once a month. I also had ground Eggshells for grit and toilet paper and paper towel roll. I think the combination works for me.
@@peggyhelblingsgardenwhatyo7920 Sounds like a pretty good worm diet!
@@GoGreenCompost they are happy little creatures 🐛
@@peggyhelblingsgardenwhatyo7920 you drink 16 cups of coffee a day?
@@moniquevandeplas5210 my husband drinks most of it. 6oz. cups
First time I have heard this. Thanks!
What about spent toilet tissue rolls paper towel rolls
My advice as some one who worked at a coffee shop: call a day or two in advance if you want coffee grounds! Where I used to work coffee grounds would be put in the garbage with everything else. If someone wanted used coffee grounds we would have to set up an old muffin pail and collect the grounds over the day. Usually the only person who wanted the grounds was a garlic farmer. Honestly, I really want to know exactly how he used the grounds.
I was under the impression that things like cardboard, shredded newspaper and old leaves were supposed to be added along with the kitchen scraps. There was like a ratio of two to one or something along those lines...
I have heard of some people growing garlic straight in coffee grounds...heard it works like a charm but never tried it myself.
@@moniquevandeplas5210 Not sure how it would work, because the density of the grounds (esp after becoming wet) would not really provide adequate airflow
Collect leaves in fall. Mix with grass clippings. Throw in whatever you want (except meat and dairy)=BLACK GOLD
Why would I use coffee grounds, risk my worm population if I have to do some thing to save my worms? What’s the gain?
a free and plentiful substrate for composting
I mix rotten hay, leaves, veggie scraps from the grocery store and old manure to my compost along with coffee grounds, but I've found, at the bottom of my huge pile of coffee grounds that I collect over the winter, that my red wigglers are doing quite well if not in the numbers in my piles.
My piles are on the ground with three layers of sheet plastic and hay in-between as well as a few feet of snow on top. When I open the oldest one up on Groundhog day to start my tomato and pepper plants. the wigglers are on the surface and very active. Before using the plastic and hay layers, the worms moved into the soil to just make it through the winter. N Idaho. -20 degrees F
So when you add the rotten hay, is this hay that you know hasn’t been sprayed with anything or GMO type etc.? The reason that I ask is because I am noticing a lot of problems with hay that has been sprayed, absolutely decimating gardens. So just made me wonder, if you are using just whatever hay you find and it’s still working just great? Thx!
@@evelyny7037 I do ask if any herbicide has been used. So far, none that I've found have been sprayed. My neighbor used some that had been sprayed and it took years to come back from it.
I put coffee grounds and eggshells in a pan in my oven, where they get toasted when I bake something. I then process them through my old Waring blender. This makes a great addition to potting soil or garden soil.
I bet! increasing the surface area like that probably makes them break down faster
@666toy soldier,
good lord how much time, energy and money did you expend putting those ingredients into your electron gobbling appliances? This is hardly the goal of composting! 🤷🏻♂️
dried and ground banana peel is great for houseplants - especially orchids .
Exactly! Some of live in colder climates and dont use worm composting and need to speed up the decomposing process by baking the eggs shells, grinding things, and other ways to speed up the process.
@@kathyscott4671 I made a winter garden here in the high desert where it gets too cold for regular gardening. I buried my compost materials about 2 feet down in the center of my 6' x 6' covered garden. I monitored the ground temperature in the buried pile while the plants were growing. It got up to 114 degrees Fahrenheit.
So, I still say that this can all be done naturally without unnecessary work and added CO$T of electricity.