I'm not so sure about that. Please have them send me a couple 50-pound bags to test it out. Yes, spent grains still have all their protein and would make an excellent organic fertilizer. As a bonus they are often covered in yeast which is sold down here as "Rocket Fuel." Start using them at 10 pounds per 1,000 square feet and see if you need to adjust that rate up or down. And tell all your friends about the great deal. The reason they give them away free is it probably costs them a bundle to dispose of them. We used to have two breweries in town. They had to pay to have their spent grains composted.

I apply alfalfa meal several times a year, use the coffee grounds we get daily from our coffee maker on randomly selected plants, ditto the banana peels. The roses seem happy and I am too because I haven't spent a ton of money or time tending to my 80 roses. I know there are more dedicated gardeners who do much more and they have gorgeous roses, so it's really an individual choice. You can probably overdo it but that may not be as much of a hazard with organic products. I hasten to add that's not my area of expertise. Ingrid

AlphaRed, I am afraid that in my posts I never did address the original question you posed and that we all went off on a tangent in the excitement of discussing UCGs. :O) Although I have slowed down a bit, for several years I was bringing home about 250 pounds of UCGs a week if not more. I composted the majority of it. In the winter it would be composted in windrows which were kept warm by the UCGs activating the compost every week, even at -15C to -20C. Tricky, but it can be done especially if less of the carbon add-ins are thrown into the mix during this cold season than in the summer. You undoubtedly have to add carbons (browns) such as leaves and such and I have discovered that in composting UCGs, you don't need as much as if you were composting veggies, lawn clippings, etc, BUT there are times when your UCGs will become anaerobic and start stinking if you don't supply/introduce them to air and mix those carbons in. Not something that's written in a book as to quantities so experimenting and getting to know the 'how much' and 'when to turn' things can be a learning experience. A one yard plastic compost bin? You can easily throw in a couple of 5 gallon buckets full of UCGs in there every week along with some browns/carbons and it will make some great compost. Don't forget to make sure there is sufficient moisture. I always take the hose out and mix it while the water is sprinkling on my goodies. Deanna, DH? Garden? Do outside work?? LMAO!!! :O) He's allergic to fresh air and sunshine and would rather play Resident Evil on the Wii. The lower rock wall was here when we bought the house in 2001. There was not a flower/shrub on the property and above that rock wall was just weeds going up the hill. Any secondary walls were built by me in 2003 - at no cost since I dumpster dived all summer at a brick manufacturer's place. We also grow rocks here... Not kidding. Every winter heaves more rocks out of the ground bit by bit. The coffee was picked-up daily from a gas station up the road which sold loads of the stuff. They would fill 2 to 3 cat litter buckets a day and keep them for me. I would collect every day and then deal with the UCGs on the weekends. Thanks for the compliments every one. Just remember that it's not instant, but it sure is rewarding!! And it lasts longer than granular steroids. :O)

Mirendajean wrote: "Acidity isn't an issue in USED coffee grounds. Be careful with unused (FRESH) grounds they are acidic. Brewing removes the acidity and gives it to coffee loving gardeners." So how much acid is present in fresh coffee grounds? The answer to that lies not in the pH of fresh coffee (as Michaelg points out) but rather in what is called the "total acidity" of fresh coffee. Total acidity is defined in the attached link (page 202, and table 7) as the volume of 0.1 molar base required to neutralize 100 grams of fresh coffee grounds. A representative value from the linked article is 130 mL of 0.1 molar base to neutralize 100 grams of fresh coffee grounds. This amounts to .013 moles of acid per 100 grams of coffee grounds or 0.059 moles of acid per pound of coffee grounds. What effect would this have on soil pH? A standard way to lower soil pH is to add elemental sulfur. A typical suggestion from university extension services is to add 2 pounds of sulfur per 100 square feet to lower the pH of a silt loam soil from pH 7 to pH 6. Sulfur owes its acidifying power to its oxidation in the soil to sulfuric acid. Two pounds of sulfur is 28 moles of sulfur and this should produce 56 moles of acid in the soil (because sulfuric acid has two acidic hydrogens, I'm counting each mole of sulfuric acid as two moles of acid). So... if 56 moles of acid per 100 square feet is required to lower the pH of a typical silt loam soil by 1 pH unit, what weight of fresh coffee grounds containing 0.059 moles of acid per pound is required to get the same result? The answer is roughly 1000 pounds of fresh coffee grounds per 100 square feet. Here is a link that might be useful: Total acidity of fresh coffee