Used Coffee Grounds for Fertilizer

KSQ2

Well-Known Member
My nephew is working at a coffee shop, and they throw away loads of used coffee grounds each day. I’ve done some reading and I’m thinking about either sprinkling them around our young fruit and oak trees, or I’ve also read you can mix the grounds with warm water and create a fast release nitrogen fertilizer. Have any of you tried this?
 
I started setting up a coffee ground compost with leftovers from home. Lost interest. I think I would be very serious about it if I had a huge source like you do.

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Just a quick interweb search on the topic and it says that the grounds themselves are too acidic to just be used directly on the soil.....should be used in a compost. I have no experience with it.....I don't drink coffee.
 
The biggest limitation is the amounts needed to make a difference. Since you have large amounts available you should pounce on that resource, it would be one component of the nutrients needed to build up your soil.
 
I use them on my Chestnuts since they like acidic soil. I figure with the coffee grounds being acidic it wouldn’t hurt them as much. I really couldn’t tell you that it had made much of a difference though.


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I've been putting coffee grounds on my chestnuts as well, for 8 years or so and I do not see a notable difference. They are growing fine. I would hesitate to apply the grounds to fruit trees without considering the acidic properties that they probably have.
 
This is a pretty big misconception. The used coffee grounds are almost neutral, usually 6.5-6.8 pH. It’s fresh ground coffee that is acidic. The acid in coffee is water soluble and ends up in your mug. We have used coffee grounds in the compost pile mostly because we don’t make enough to use directly as fertilizer but I wouldn’t hesitate to do that if I had a good source like you do.


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This is a pretty big misconception. The used coffee grounds are almost neutral, usually 6.5-6.8 pH. It’s fresh ground coffee that is acidic. The acid in coffee is water soluble and ends up in your mug. We have used coffee grounds in the compost pile mostly because we don’t make enough to use directly as fertilizer but I wouldn’t hesitate to do that if I had a good source like you do.


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Good information. I always wondered about this..
 
I knew a guy that kept a cut in half by length barrel to keep earthworms in for fishing.

He fed them coffee grounds and shredded newspaper.


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