Quick Tips: Coffee Grounds

We have three adults in the house, and make a lot of coffee! I’m always keen to tips on recycling the coffee grounds and leftover coffee. Here are a few tried and true uses that I have discovered:

1. Compost the grounds, with the filter if you want. It’s great for the compost pile and the garden. One note: don’t use the coffee-tainted compost for lime-soil-loving plants (such as peas). Coffee grounds acidify the soil and lime-loving plants will not do well. Tomato plants, on the other hand, revel in coffee-flavored compost!

2. Use cooled, diluted leftover coffee to water your houseplants once a day. Of course, don’t overdo it, and be aware that coffee will acidify the plant’s soil. Don’t use on plants that require sweet, lime soil.

3. Use coffee grounds and leftover coffee to fertilize blue hydrangeas. I have some lovely Nikko blue hydrangeas near the foundation of my home. Blue hydrangeas need acidic soil; if there is lime in the soil, the blooms are pink, not blue. My home is 150 years old, so there’s a ton of lime in the soil that has leached from my limestone-mortared foundation. I was told to buy aluminum sulfate at the garden center to have blue blooms– too expensive! i don’t know what got into me a few springs ago, but I started pouring coffee over the plants every day, and I have had blue blooms. One note if you attempt this– start early in the year, when the plant is coming out of dormancy. Otherwise, the bluing won’t be as successful throughout the summer.

4. Sprinkle coffee grounds in your flower beds. This will keep the cats from using your flower beds as their litter box. :-p

If you have any other ideas, feel free to leave a comment! I’d love to know. If you found this post helpful, please stumble it with StumbleUpon! The convenient button is below. Thanks!