Did you know that April 22 is Earth Day and that the entire month of April is thus dubbed Earth Month?
If you’re not in grade school anymore, chances are you might have forgotten about the day, but it is important to remember.
Earth Day is a good time to think about ways to better the Earth on that day, it is a good reminder of how we can eliminate waste moving forward.
A great way to cut down on waste is to stop getting your coffee at a coffee shop! You can only recycle cups meant for iced drinks and plastic straws cannot be recycled.
If you make coffee at home, instead of throwing out your leftover coffee grounds, you can toss them into your garden and it will actually be extremely beneficial!
1: Fertilizer
Even if you don’t have a full-on garden, but just one small, potted plant in your apartment, this is still something you can do.
Coffee grounds actually contain essential nutrient nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, and other micronutrients. Meaning,
it can be used as a slow-release fertilizer!
Simply, sprinkle a thin layer of coffee grounds on top of your soil and voila!
2: Compost
This one should be a no-brainer!
Not only can you toss your leftover coffee grounds into your compost pile, but you can also toss the paper filter in as well.
Don’t have a compost pile? Embrace Mother Earth and get started! You can follow these four easy steps to creating your our compost pile/bin at home on Maria’s Farm Country Kitchen‘s website.
3: Natural pesticide
While we might love coffee, pests like slugs and snails are not fans of the bitter drink.
To keep them out of your garden, you need only sprinkle them over your soil.
4: Flourish acid-loving plants
You can get your roses in full bloom with a little bit of coffee! Doesn’t coffee perk everyone up?
If you have roses, rhododendrons, azaleas, lilies, holly, or gardenias, you’re going to want to keep some extra coffee grounds on hand.
The coffee grounds react well to the acidity in the soil and these plants thrive. Be careful though and keep it away from your veggies, as tomatoes tend to not respond well to coffee grounds.
5: Keep cats out of your garden
Does your cat gnaw on all of your beautiful flowers and plants? Same!
Not only is it pesky, it is also dangerous for your kitties. Lilies can be near-deadly if consumed by cats.
Putting coffee grounds in your soil will help keep your cat from digging up all of your favorite plants and it should hopefully limit their chewing. You can also mix in orange peels to help keep your cat from using your garden as a bathroom.
6: Flourish your carrots and radish harvest
Are you looking to double your harvest of carrots and radishes?
You can mix together the seeds of your carrots and radishes with your coffee grounds before planting them.
7: Make the worms happy
If you feel bad when all of the worms come up to the surface after a big rainstorm, you can help them out by feeding them.
Like all of us dragging ourselves out of bed every morning, worms like the taste of coffee! You can feed their bellies by sprinkling some coffee grounds in your garden.
Worms are good for your garden, as they act like little plows that break up the soil and allow water and air to get into the mix.
8: Make some mulch
Using coffee grounds for mulch can help control weeds in your garden and keep plants hydrated.
Some gardeners have found that using coffee grounds directly can be disastrous for this purpose. Instead, it is better to mix the grounds with an organic matter, like compost.
If not, you can rake the coffee grounds into the top layer of your garden’s soil.
Please SHARE these gardening tips with your friends and family with green thumbs on Facebook today.
If you need a little more assistance when it comes to putting these coffee grounds to good use in your garden, you can check out the video below.
OYR Frugal & Sustainable Organic Gardening explains how coffee grounds “Used coffee grounds are a great free resource to put to work in your garden. They enrich the soil with nitrogen and other minerals, improve soil structure, and increase organic matter in the soil.”
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