That would be a good combination, since the new Rose Tone is a bit light on nitrogen. Or you could just use alfalfa pellets, maybe four cups per season, much cheaper and perfectly balanced-- unless there is an immediate shortage of available nitrogen. Rose Tone does include some fast nitrogen. A spoonful of lawn fertilizer also supplies fast N.

Whether alfalfa is as stimulating as alfalfa tea hasn't been objectively tested, but tea devotees think not. Myself, I'm not going to the trouble of brewing tea.

I brew alfalfa tea, but I also mix in a bunch of alfalfa pellets to all my granular fertilizers such as RoseTone, Dr. Earth, or Mills Magic Mix. I do this to make the fertilizer 'last' longer and to add some additional nitrogen and organic material to the soil.

I'd think that alfalfa pellets would be of more benefit than coffee grounds.

Coffee grounds are free and you're keeping them out of the landfill. They contain about 2% nitrogen and 1% phosphate dry weight. Alfalfa is NPK 3-1-2 plus a growth stimulant.

If you use anything else with Rose Tone, you can reduce the Rose Tone. The labeled dose is quite generous for, say, a zone 6 HT.

If you use coffee grounds, you might want to mix them up with something else. I put some on this winter, and when they get wet and then dry out, they make a solid mat that's a little tricky to deal with. Mixing them with something to break it up a little would help.

Or you could try composting them first. They do WONDERFUL things to the compost pile---mine gets steaming just like it's supposed to with coffee grounds added; without them it tends to just sit there.

Rose-tone has alfalfa an an ingredient.

And you don't have to make alfalfa tea, you can just use dry alfalfa. I put down a cup of dry alfalfa around every plant twice a season, but I also use Holly-tone around once a month.

Coffee grounds have some N, but are mainly used as a method to increase the amount of organic material in the soil. You wouldn't use coffee grounds alone.

Coffee grounds atract earthworms ....aerate the soil and leave organic casings. The worms attract MOLES which push up the roots of my roses.

Susan, I agree worms in rich organic topsoil attract moles whose burrowing causes setbacks to roses. It's a significant problem in my garden. I'm not sure whether worms are a net plus or minus. I've heard of British gardeners poisoning them with Sevin to reduce the mole problem. Oh, and I also have skunks digging holes around my roses.

I used dry coffee grounds at the beginning of spring. I would just grab a handful out of the can and "throw" it around each of my roses on top of the mulch.

I did this, not to fertlize, but to deter slugs around my roses. This is the first year that I have tried this.

I can say that it has to absolutely have worked! I have seen no slugs anywhere close to my gardens!

Not exactly the topic of this post, but I thought it was fitting to throw this in.

Shelly

Will alfalfa cubes do as well as pellets? Probably not since they won't be a finely ground. I will have to try another farm supply store to see if they have them.

Thanks for the info!

As for moles I have a lot of them in the yard in front but if they get in back one of my dogs hunts them down and digs them up and eats them! Yuck! She's gotten back about leaving craters around the yard but she hasn't dug up any roses yet. I'm fond of moles (funny cute little critters) so we co-exist in front where they haven't hit my rose bed at all.

Janegael, i have 3 Wheaten terriers ( terre=ground...as in go to ground to hunt small vermin) and they are useless when it comes to the moles. I think they are cute too, until then push up my roots with one of their tunnels.

I use alfalfa cubes, but I soak them first. Not quite a tea, but enough to soften the cubes. Then they can be crumbled around the bushes.

Cubes are fine, you want horse food. Many people put them around the plant, water them to get them soaked and then crumble.

I've used both the cubes and the pellets and much prefer the pellets. When I first started using alfalfa around the garden, I looked all over town and all I could find were alfalfa cubes intended to be horse feed. I went through a 50# bag of the cubes and finally ran out last fall. This spring when I went to find a replacement, the store I got them from last time had switched to a pellet product instead of the cubes. Now that I have used both, the pellets break up and dissolve into the soil much faster than the broken up cubes ever did.

Plus the pellets seem to dissolve into the tea better or at least the 'crud' goes through my watering can better than the sludge resulting from the cubes did.

Pellets are the way to go unless the cubes are all you can find. As long as it is 100% alfalfa and no salt, it should be fine for the garden.

I have a question. Do you all consider the tea application one of your fertilizings?