Garden Of Organic Delights

Weather is cool and I should be in my garden today hauling bark and other materials for my sheet mulching project to take out the grass.  Instead I am on my deck drinking iced coffee and contemplating the worms.    I found a copy of Patricia Lanza's book "Lazagna Gardening":  even though I understand the method I wanted to read it from her lips and enjoy her ideas on th matter.    It was great and contained more information thatn I expected.  Amazon.com has some copies of the older book and I looked at the newer book and it has good ideas for small spaces.  Lasagna Gardening is very appropriate in these type of areas.  It is amazing the amount of produce you can harvest.

 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0875969623/ref=cm_cr_mts_prod_img

Locally, Forza coffee is stockpiling coffee and I have been using coffee grounds in my sheet mulching project along with bark chips and rabbit manure and straw.  I am amazed at the worm activity in a small bed that I throw my coffee grounds into every morning off the deck.  My coffee drinking is an excuse of course to take a break from hauling materials around.  I am trying an experiment with the coffee grounds to see which mixture the worms like best.  I am adding small amount of lime along with compost and coffee grounds seeing what level of grounds they can handle.  I forsee a day when we will see big bags of dried grounds at the garden center. 

I am currently looking for ways to introduce the worms to my garden.  My soil is very hard and compacted and during a recent irrigation project we found no earthworms deep down.  It is no wonder people here are lawn chemically dependent.  There are no critters working the soil.  I am going to change that.  Worms do the work and leave castings but when I was searching for info. on how to deal with earth worms I found a "TruGreen Ad" that advocated not having organic material anywhere near your lawn...not using water and for pete's sake use chemicals.  This is EXACTLY the type of advice to give if you want to be chemically dependent when it comes to your lawn.  It is amazing they can get away with this advice..."put your lawn on drugs" (and by the way it kills the worms.)

So, I will gulp down this last bit of coffee and go haul the grounds around that I got from Forza Coffee.  Thanks to the staff who saved them for me and for coffee!  I am glad worms like coffee too!

Here is article by Doug Green, Author and Garden expert:

Coffee grounds and gardening might not seem like a match made in heaven but there?s some evidence to show that we should be using this very abundant waste product in our gardening efforts.

And most of us have lots of this product so here?s how to work both ends against the middle and use this product.

The first thing to be aware of is there?s a lot of misinformation and unproven data out there about coffee grounds and gardening.

Coffee Grounds & Slugs

The research on slugs and caffeine shows that concentrations of caffeine as low as .01 % reduces feeding by slugs (they avoid caffeine treated leaves) but that it doesn?t kill them at that rate.  A 1% solution can be expected to kill 60% of slugs while a 2% caffeine solution will knock out 95% of all slugs. This 2% solution is more effective than the chemical normally used in slug control. (metaldehyde)   The 2% solution also damaged some foliage on the tropical plants being used to feed the slugs. This calls into caution the use of caffeine on more tender leaved plants.

So where does this leave you with your morning coffee grounds and gardening?

Fresh coffee contains approximately .05% caffeine. This means that coffee grounds and fresh coffee will not kill slugs but may act as a mild deterrent. Slugs will go elsewhere to eat if given the choice.

Coffee Grounds And Garden

Absolutely!

Used coffee grounds make an excellent mulch. Note that they are acidic with a pH of between 3.0 and 5.0 making them superb for mulching rhododendrons, azalea and other acid loving plants.

They can be used thinly all over the regular garden as organic matter so you can simply toss your used coffee grounds onto the garden if you like. Unless you?re adding inches of this stuff (in commercial quantities) to the garden, you?re not going to see a difference in your soil pH.

If you do add a large quantity, you may want to dig them into the garden as there are reports that they will ?go bad? and develop a fungal layer if left exposed to the air.

Coffee Grounds & Worms

Coffee grounds are beloved by worms. I have a worm bin and you can almost hear the cheer when I toss in the morning?s makings of used coffee grounds. So if you have a vermiculture setup, use old coffee grounds as a food source. If not, simply toss them onto the garden and the worms will find them.

I note that I take my grounds to the office each day after making (and drinking) the coffee. This seems to stop any negative odors or fruit fly problems with saving up the coffee grounds for a week. I?d do the same in the garden. Toss them out daily into the garden or into the compost bin.

And they should go into your regular compost bin because they compost very well in the compost bin. They have a carbon-to-nitrogen ratio of 20:1, roughly the same as grass clippings. After making the morning wakeup, coffee grounds contain up to 2% nitrogen. So for composting purposes, consider coffee grounds "green" material similar to grass clippings.

And one of the interesting things about composting coffee grounds is that the microbes that do the composting will turn the coffee from acidic to a neutral pH. So coffee does not make compost acidic.

So that?s all the real news about coffee grounds and gardening.