Used coffee grounds have been discarded as trash by millions of people around the world. But is there are a possibility that there has been another use for your used grounds all along? The answer is yes! In fact, coffee grounds can actually be an incredible fertilizer for your plants. Learn more about what makes used coffee grounds fertilizer such a wonderful addition to any garden.
Give Your Plants More Life
The more you learn about the used coffee grounds, the more sense it makes to use them as a fertilizer. My grandmother taught me years ago that there was a secret reason to hold on to your used coffee grounds. She said that the grounds give your plants “more life.” I always wondered what she meant by “more life,” and it puzzled me for weeks. But then, as I watched her plants grow, I began to see some amazing things take place in her garden. Her tomato plants were especially huge, and much larger than that of our neighbors. Tomatoes the size of softball grew in her garden at a fast pace. When the neighbors would inquire about her gardening secret, she simply said, “I have rich soil.” She did not lie, because due to those used coffee grounds, her soil was mighty rich indeed.
An Added Nitrogen Boost for your Soil
As a kid, I thought the coffee grounds were a bit of magic that grandma applied to her garden. But now I know that used coffee grounds are actually a great fertilizer for gardens because of their high nitrogen content. Of all the mineral nutrients in the soil, nitrogen is generally the most difficult for plants to acquire. The reason plants have difficulty growing and thriving is because of the way they acquire the nitrogen. It is primarily thru their roots, which are buried in the soil. Most plants depend on mineral forms of nitrogen in the soil, and this is where your coffee grounds come into place and really change the game for your garden.
The use of coffee grounds for fertilizer gives the soil the added nitrogen that your plants need. As an added benefit, coffee grounds also contain potassium, phosphorus and many other elements that aid in plant development. Many rose gardeners report that used coffee grounds help their roses to grow and bloom. Some also add that when coffee grinds fertilizer is added to the soil, it has made their roses more colorful and larger than normal. In several studies, plants that are placed in nitrogen-rich soil grew faster and larger than plants that grew in natural soil.
Beneficial for Your Compost
Did you know that used coffee grounds can also be a boost for your compost? In fact, when added to a compost pile, used coffee grounds compost very quickly. Nitrogen is a component of all proteins, and is crucial to life. Paper coffee filters can be added to a compost pile as well to act as a source of carbon. It is clearly wiser to save those used coffee grounds and use them in your gardens or household flowerpots than to simply toss them in the trashcan after brewing your daily cup of joe.
You, too, can enrich your garden’s appearance with the use of leftover coffee grounds. Simply save your grounds from your morning coffee and mix it in with your favorite planters and watch the magic take place! If you are not using used coffee grounds as fertilizer, you are wasting a great natural resource for your plants and flowers.
