Coffee and Your Garden

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Coffee.  Nectar of the gods.  Hot bean water.  Best drink ever.  Most people can't start their day without it.  I'm not one of those people but I do love a good coffee.  There is seldom a day that goes by without at least one cup of coffee in my hand.  It's not like I need the coffee, I just actually enjoy coffee.  Imagine how happy I was when I found out that my garden could possibly also enjoy some coffee!

It turns out that there are a few plants that can also benefit from adding coffee grounds.  Acid-loving plants include tomatoes, corn, spinach, blueberries or leafy vegetables! There are also some flowers that love acid like hydrangeas, azaleas, and rhododendrons. Mentioned earlier, nitrogen is one of the ingredients plants need to help turn sunlight into energy.  Plus, some of these plants do better in slightly acidic soil.  By slightly acidic I mean a pH of about 5.5-5, whereas most plants prefer a neutral soil of 7.  Coffee grounds can be used by mixing small amounts into the soil.   Or SF gate recommends mixing coffee with a nitrogen fertilizer before mixing into the garden.  A word of caution about this, coffee grounds also repel water so don't let them dry out too much before using them!  And don't use too much, too much can increase the acidity too much which will limit the nutrients available to your plants.

Coffee may also serve as weed and pest prevention particularly slugs and snails.  And rumor has it that squirrels hate the smell of coffee, which is what led me down the coffee-garden trail to begin with.

Coffee can mainly benefit your garden through composting.  Many articles tell you to limit the direct application of coffee to your garden, and caution readers to watch their own gardens for reactions to coffee if used. But if you toss your coffee grounds in your compost which adds nitrogen to your compost, one of the three main nutrient components to fertilizer - the other two are potassium and phosphorus.  Nitrogen helps plants turn sunlight into energy. But when adding Nitrogen to your compost through green materials, make sure you add an appropriate amount of carbon-rich, or brown materials, like coffee filters.  Green and brown materials work together to create the environment needed to break down the compost into the fertilizer your plants so love.  So, if you're composting, keep a hold of your coffee grounds and filters and take them out to the composter rather than throwing them away!  And, some coffee shops give away their grounds for free!  A Starbucks that I used to frequent used to do this but I don't know if Starbucks does this anymore.  Swings Coffee, a DC coffee roaster, does this at their Alexandria VA roasting location.  So ask around your local coffee place and see if they give away grounds for composting purposes.  What a great way to limit and reuse waste!


I have some coffee grounds waiting to be used for my lettuce to stop the squirrels from picking at it.  I'm excited to try this out, particularly for squirrel prevention.  I'll let you know how the experiment goes!  Do you use coffee in your compost or garden? Let us know in the comments!

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