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Vegetable Gardening

Tea bags, Coffee ground and nuts for plants

15 years ago

Hello I am new here! I am growing a small garden and having fun doing so. I've read old posts about using tea bags for compost or individual plants. I hope no one has already post this but I was wondering for the use of individual plants can any kind of tea bags be used? I imagine that chai bags would be bad for plants but I am new to this so I am not sure. Can peppermint tea bags be used? Is there any bags that should be avoided that are bad for plants? Are there any types of coffee grounds that aren't ok for plants? Also can whole nuts be used? I have some old almond nuts and hazelnuts that are frozen that I am thinking of thawing them out and putting onto the soil of my plants. I am also going to use egg shells as I have read here that they are great for plants. Thanks so much for your help! Happy gardening :-)

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Comments (7)

hatchjon
15 years ago
All those things are good for compost. I drink a lot of tea an always throw the spent bags into my compost. I'd eat the nuts unless they had gone bad. I compost spent coffee grounds as well and have heard you can mix them with soil uncomposted.

Jon
kanuk
15 years ago
I'd be cautious about putting nuts around plants because they would surely attract squirrels and other rodents to your garden. They might come for the nuts and soon discover other things they'd like as well.
Just my 2 cents.
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The FAQs have good info on composting coffee grounds, and I and many others use them successfully directly in the garden. They are rich in nitrogen and I like to think of them as a gentle, organic fertilizer and soil amendment. They are wonderful for greening up lawns and I like to use them to topdress plants that I grow for foliage, like hostas, heucheras, and lettuce. The only problem I have ever heard of anyone having from using them directly is that if you apply them too thickly, they can crust over and repel water, and if you apply them too often, they could induce too lush growth. I haven't had either of these problems myself. I suppose that you shouldn't apply them too late in the growing season, either. Try them and see how they work for you. Good luck!
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Citrus peels do contain a compound that is toxic to worms. It's not a big concern to put a few orange peels in a home worm bin occasionally, as long as they are only a small percentage of the total fodder - the compound does get broken down eventually by bacterial activity and orange peels become part of the finished vermicompost in the long run. However, any large volume of citrus peels in a worm bin is another matter: you could see a worm die-off, and the worms would not be able to process the citrus effectively even with bacterial help. So I would definitely separate out the citrus peels and not put them in the worm bin. (Outdoor composting is fine for the citrus, the toxic compound will disperse more readily outdoors and it's easier for your free-ranging worms to avoid it.) Another precaution to take with a large volume of fruit scraps in a worm bin is to make sure they don't compact down, get concentrated, stay wet and start to ferment - something else that will kill worms. You'll need to make sure there is plenty of bedding mixed with the fruit scraps and that the mixture is well aerated, and that you're not adding too much for the worms to keep up with. Another factor is the design of your bin - wide and shallow is a lot better than deep, because more surface area of bedding in contact with the air allows for better aeration and evaporation of excess moisture. I agree that you probably will not be able to compost this large volume of fruit scraps if you get it regularly, regardless of method. Whatever system you use will get overwhelmed pretty fast by lack of space. It would really be too bad for all those great fruit peels to go to waste! - But maybe you can hook your friend up with a larger composting operation that wants the scraps on a regular basis.
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brookw_gw
15 years ago
Add all the tea and coffee you can. I get hundreds of pounds from Starbucks every year. Worms seem to love tea and coffee. Coffee, I believe, is acidic. I know my blueberries are thriving in a deep coffee mulch. I would not compost the nuts; crush them and give the birds a treat.

Best of luck,

Brook
imrainey
15 years ago
You're talking about putting that stuff in a compost pile and putting the finished compost on your plants, right? I put that stuff in my compost all the time. I put the coffee grounds in with their paper filters. I put paper tea bags in intact -- string and paper tags too. I cut the plastic mesh tea bags open and discard the plastic.

There are things you could dig directly into the ground around plants like banana peels, but, for the most part, better to let it decompose first. And when you put stuff around your plants, make sure to keep it 1 1/2" away from the stems to avoid stem rot.

I've also used coffee grounds as a mulch but just for acid-loving plants like azaleas.
gardener_sandy
14 years ago
Be careful what uncomposted food you put near the plants growing in the garden. I put banana peels under some plants one year and the raccoons dug them all up to get to the peels. Critters can do more damamge in a short time than you can imagine. I'd compost the nuts or feed them to the birds as suggested, but not in the garden.

Sandy
roma2009
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks so much! I will use all this info for my garden! I will avoid nuts since I have a lot of squirrels and the occasional raccoon so I will be careful. Thanks everybody! This is a great forum :-)
granite_grrl
14 years ago
I have read that while coffee its self is quite acidic, the grounds them selves are neutral. Something about the acids in the unbrewed beans being quite soluble:

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/soil/2002015354019975.html

I don't have a compost pile and just throw my coffee grounds and used tea bag right on the garden.

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