Which plants like coffee grounds?
Especially plants that like acidic soil are very happy with coffee grounds. For example, your beautiful hydrangeas, your radiant roses, the lawn or the lavender bushes, but also the gardenia, chamomile and rhododendrons. In addition, your vegetable garden also loves coffee grounds, for example the carrots, pumpkins, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers and also blueberries, cranberries and citrus trees. Below I give you 9 tips about what you could do with coffee grounds in your garden!
1. Purchased a new garden plant?
Give your beautiful plant a good start by mixing coffee grounds with new garden soil or potting soil, pour it into the planting hole and plant your new plant above.
2. Rich in nutrients
Coffee grounds are rich in potassium, copper, magnesium and nitrogen. It contains little to no lime.
3. Acidity
Coffee grounds have an acidity of about 5 to 6. What exactly does this mean? Water is pH neutral, pH7. This means that the acids and bases cancel each other out. Anything lower than 7 is called acidic. Anything higher than 7 is called basic or alkaline. pH ranges from 0 (very acidic) to 14 (very basic). Does it have a pH value of 7? Then it is neutral. Coffee residue is therefore with its 5 to 6 on the acidic side.
4. Do your plants dislike acid soil?
Then it may be that the coffee grounds are a bit too acidic for your plants. Mix the coffee grounds with a little garden lime, which lowers the acidity and makes it suitable as rich nutrition for your plants. Instead of garden lime you can also use egg shells for this, these are also full of lime.
5. DIY: Plant nutrition
Make your own plant food! You can do this very easily by soaking a coffee cup full of coffee grounds in a small bucket of water. Let this stand for at least a day in a room that is not too warm, so that it can absorb well. Then pour the moisture into a plant watering can and give it to your houseplants. You can throw away the rest of the coffee grounds from your bucket or sprinkle it in your garden. Be careful with plants that are less able to tolerate acids.
6. Combating fungal diseases
According to researchers, coffee grounds can help prevent fungal diseases in your plants, such as fusarium, pythium, sclerotinia. Plants such as peppers, tomatoes and eggplant are susceptible to these fungal diseases and can certainly use some coffee grounds as protection.
7. Compost and worms
Coffee grounds help the composting process, which is very nice. Worms in your compost heap love coffee grounds. In addition, worms in your garden and compost heap are indispensable for keeping the soil loose. They grind the fine soil particles, making the minerals in your soil more available to plants and allowing them to root better. Do not throw coffee pods in your compost, you can use coffee filters with coffee grounds.
8. Animals
We all know by now that cats, slugs, snails and ants do not like coffee grounds. Therefore sprinkle it nicely around the plants, so that these are less likely to get to your beautiful plants. In this case it is very important that you continue to sprinkle it regularly, for example every week, depending on what gives you the best result.
9. How do you get more coffee grounds?
Do you drink little coffee but would you like to use a lot of coffee grounds? Then ask your neighbours or friends to keep it for you! Use it immediately, because if it stands too long it will mold ;-) Do you have a nice (coffee / garden) tip for us after reading this blog? We’d love to hear from you!