Re: coffee grounds as compost
- To: M*@ucdavis.edu
- Subject: Re: coffee grounds as compost
- From: R* F* D*
- Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 21:54:40 -0500 (EST)
At 04:04 PM 2/24/2000 PST, you wrote:
>Hi, all,
>I work at SFO airport, and one day I idly asked the coffee lady what she did
>with all the coffee grounds. Nothing. So she started saving them for me to
>put in my compost. Is this maybe too much of a good thing? We've always
>put my tea bags and my husband's coffee grounds into our compost every day,
>but that is a very small quantity.
>Also is anyone from the Bay Area planning on going to the orchid show at
>Fort Mason this weekend? Sincerely, Anne Conlon
Anne:
The best compost I ever made included coffee grounds, red maple leaves, and
dried horse manure in about a 1:8:2-3 ratio, intimately ground through a
Sears hammermill shredder. In 3 weeks, it had turned to nearly white leaf
mold, and in another 3 - 4 weeks, became nearly solid, pure worm castings.
I quickly learned that it made for tremendously robust plants and bagged as
much as I could for my soil mixes.
My parents operated a family-style restaurant on US 202 in Granby, and would
put the hot, wet coffee grounds in a separate bucket to keep the rest of the
trash from becoming heavy, wet, and sloppy. I gathered and stockpiled it
for mixing with the leaves from our 15 red maple trees in autumn.
That was in the late 70s in Massachusetts. How I wish I could have several
cubic yards of that now for my potting soil!! Alas, no handy restaurants,
no maple leaves, and no time. It would not surprise me if some restaurants
do the same as my parents.
By themselves, coffee grounds have a lot of nitrogen, and will attract and
breed a LOT of earthworms.
Richard F. Dufresne
313 Spur Road
Greensboro, North Carolina 27406 USA
336-674-3105
