Starbucks had the Washington State University analyze coffee grounds and many places now list the nutrients available. Primarily coffee grounds provide Nitrogen.

Here is a link that might be useful: Nutrients in coffee grounds

Questions about engine replacements would be best answered on the Tool Shed Forum.

I got a couple of informed posts on that forum when I was looking for a 1" shaft 4 hp motor to replace my B&S chipper engine. There were two websites I found that carried a good variety of Briggs and Stratton and other motors. You will need the shaft diamater and length, and all the engine numbers, plus the model numbers off the machinery itself.

Coffee grounds are desirable for composting and gardening because they are already "ground" and "moist" the perfect texture ready to decompose.

And worms LOVE them, and if your worms are happy, everybody's happy.

"If your worms are happy, everybody's happy."

That made me smile. I think I'll embroider that on a pillow!

Seriously. Nothing makes worms grow more than kitchen scraps. My big fat energetic worms have looked so healthy that they seem to glow iridescently.

The Starbucks coffee compost test

Put a 5 gallon bucket of UCG on my pile earlier this week. Checked it today and for the first time I can remember it was steaming hot. Today's temps did not get above 35 degrees. Impressive stuff.

Have been adding coffee grounds for many years to improve my rocky clay soil. All I want for Christmas is... bags of coffee grounds...

Seriously, though my kids know to pick up grounds when they're driving out & about to bring home to Mommy. They are a great improvement to soil texture and it seems that I don't have too much as it breaks down a lot over time. I just pile it up with various other materials and mix in a bit as we collect. Or just dump a pile under the fruit trees for later mixing in a bit with some browns. It always composts and my plants love it!

While coffee grounds can be a good addition to soil that soil will need other things to balance and provide nutrients not found in coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are good but not the only thing soils need.

Kimmsr: you're right about soil needing other things.

Coffee grounds are just one of the organic matter additions that help out soils especially my clay soils.

I have over 25 tons of coffee chaff, with some whole bean & ground coffee mixed in.
The coffee processing plant delivers it to my 10 acre farm lot, free of charge. They deliver it to my land, because it is cheater & greener then hauling it to the land fill. Their goal is to recycle 100% of their waste. Giving it to me is part of that.
I want to say Thank You for the links. I had some information, by more links the better.

Jolj, Do you mix it all into compost? Is it dark; could it be used as mulch? I imagine it to be kind of "crunchy" and dark, and really pretty around plants.
How do you use it?

nancyjeanmc, yes & no.
When it is fresh out of the roaster it is light & fluffy like dry northern snow ( what we call snow in S.C. is ices & wet).
It is light drown or cream & very hot. It is so hot that it is wet with water so it will not burn. With in minutes it is in the super sack/ 4'x4'x6' tall. Still hot & wet 7 goes though a heat to break down even in the winter. If you spread it with in 5-8 days you get moldy smell, but loose dark, wet almost sawdust matter. I have seen it look like black cottage cheese. When the sacks fall off the truck many lay down on the side & are about 4' high. If left alone to rot they fall to 12-16 inches of compost, that is muddy in wet weather & hard like dry bread crust in dry, hot weather. The grubs & many other insects use it to run their life cycle. I just work it in to the soil in sheet compost. I could compost it with outer matter, but I have so much chaff that I do not have time for it. I use it to get humus, I will test & balance the beds when I get ready to plant. I must say some of you have a better compost site then I. My one regret is that I can not share this chaff with those of you who would know what to do with it. The best thing is that in 6-12 months it will be humus, even if I do not touch it after unloading.

pt 03, that Starbucks article explained a lot about coffee grounds and why anybody considering trying to improve their soil needs adding other amendments if they hope to achieve some kind of balanced richness. The N.P.K. totals in coffee grounds are insignificant without their combining with other elemental amendments.
Still, whether insignificant or otherwise, the grounds are an addition that should be maintained for whatever good they do deliver.

I have no problem with using UCGs as recommended in the article. I myself would not call the amounts of nutrients insignificant but it would depend on one's own requirements.

Lloyd

The bonsai forum has discussions about used coffee grounds and them possibly being alleopathic. Isn't that like juglone, where it hurts other plants? I just read this article today. could there be any truth to it? They did not say this was specific to bonsai where the soil is in small volume. That would have been understandable. Perhaps if you used a overly huge volume this could happen? I have used the grounds before with no bad effects. Is there a wronge way to use them?

I have been researching the serious literature about alleopathic chemicals in coffee and stashing the results in a zombie thread. So far I have not found anything except the inhibition of germination of weed seed. Go to the links at Allelopathic, autotoxic Chemicals in Coffee: - Test Forum - GardenWeb and see if you find anything I have missed.

Here is a photo of one of 7 bags of coffee waste, whole bean & ground coffee{{gwi:318213}}, as well as coffee chaff.

I love that! I think it would make some good looking mulch.

Acckkkk!!! Don't cut those bags, I need a dozen or two!

I want to "lend" them out to some of the homeowners in town that have a bazillion trees and put out 2 bazillion bags of leaves in the fall. I figured I'd let them fill up some large totes and I'd pick them up rather than have to deal with the plastic leaf bags.

I've been looking for a couple dozen bags and then I see them being cut, brings tears to my eyes.

:-)

Lloyd

Mourning,
I will do a up date in summer,nancyjeanmc. pt03
I could ship you some or you could buy them from tote systems.
I think they are $35.00 each, I have some burlap bags that are cut across the top too. I do not know is shipping would coats effective. I will let you know. If you would like to try this, instead of buying new ones.

Thx, I've got messages out to a bunch of boarding stables. They get feed in these kind of bags and on occasion they have a few they can't return so they could let me have them. May take a while, but I'll get some.

Lloyd

Ground Coffee as Fertilizer : Coffee Grounds to Ground is a blog on coffee grounds and soil and gardening. They have multiple posts back to at least June '10.

Light easy reading, many pictures.

Hi Albert. Thanks for stopping by the site and hope you got some good information from it. As you mentioned, the site is dedicated to doing something about the many tonnes of coffee grounds that are discarded each day.
You folks are in a great position in being able to help make a difference. The grounds are not a perfect fertilizer and need to be balanced out, but when you look at their overall benefit it is just something too good to let go to waste.
Take care all, and seeing how it's nearly 2011 - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Here is a link that might be useful: Ground to Ground site

I noticed that the site says the grounds can deter cats. How about other animals ... shhhh phylum rodentia ... ?
Could be grounds for drinking more coffee! ;)

From the link provided, all I can see is that it prevents weeds and I'm assuming plants in the same family as the weeds.So if you want to grow a veg like broccoli which is related to Lambs quarter if I'm not misstaken you start the seeds ahead of time and once germination is complete you are fine to add the coffee grounds?You are lucky to get all that delivered to you. We don't even have a starbucks in Uniontown, Pa. so I just use from my once a day cup, it would take years just to equal 1 bag! Every one else here drinks Freeze dried instant.

Even before I got tons of coffee & chaff, I used my coffee & TEA grounds in composting. I was born & reared in South Carolina, so ice tea is the thing to drink.
Ground will stop snails & slugs, even slow white tail deer as long as there is other weeds/grass for them.
As for the Cole family(Broccoli, cabbage,collards)I have grew them in coffee humus for 3 years now & given away as many as I have eaten & put up. Have not read the link,but I have had no problem with the humus or the chaff as a mulch.

I think our white tail deer, here up North, are a tad less discerning. And a bit more hyper, if you get my drift. ;)

Nancyjeanmc,

I don't think - I KNOW!!!! :O) The smell of UCGs sprinkled heavily on the hostas, phlox, and other garden perennials and shrubs does not deter them and I'm starting to think they like the taste of the stuff too.

As per the cats being deterred by UCGs, well, could someone tell the neighbour's cats before I do something harsh???

Oh, and the slugs think I've created paths for them with the stuff. The only coffee which will stop snails and slugs is unbrewed coffee since it is the caffeine which eats away at their slimy little coverings removing that gross mucous and therefore dehydrating them to death. (Ah, such a pleasure to see!!) Since brewing coffee removes all it's caffeine, then the UCGs are ineffective in the battle on slugs.

But, let's face it - the stuff is darn good as a soil amendment as my gardens have shown over the last few years.

Joli, what do you mean "whole bean". We're talking about using used coffee grounds. Where does 'whole bean' come into the picture.

Great image, Tiffy. I'm picturing the slugs setting up little cafes on either side of their newly laid "roads."
Bad enough the grounds don't deter the deer. It's more annoying when they leave you little notes asking for more cream and sugar!

tiffy, I was told that USED coffee & tea grounds are toxic to snails, my basil looked like someone had shot it with a shotgun.I put used coffee &tea grounds around it, no more holes in new growth. It worked for me,also not all snail eat LIVING plant life, some are good.
goren look close at the picture you will see fresh ground coffee & whole beans. I use it all whole green beans,whole roasted,roasted ground & chaff.It all compost just fine.
If I find the link on used grounds being toxic from one of those high price schools I will post it for you.

..
I find after a week or so the coffee grounds go stale and the snails just laugh. I had to spread coffee grounds lightly week after week but after a while I got a build up of grounds and just had to stop.

I like to mulch with coffee grounds and then mulch grass clippings on top of that to mitigate the crusting effect.

Yeah, the worms dig it.
..

Rott,
I use coffee in my mulch, too. I put a very thin layer of wood chip mulch over newspaper early in the season. As it thins out, and lightens up, I "perk" it up with coffee grounds. Always looks newly mulched.

UCGs as mulch? Great when mixed in with something else. Here's some UCGs mixed with shredded leaves...

{{gwi:196913}}

... and here they are in the gardens.

{{gwi:196914}}

Tiffy,
That's beautiful!
Spring, come quickly.
Nancy

..
Yeah mixing should mitigate the crusting effect too. When you mix the grounds with shredded leaves, does that help with the wind blowing the leaves away?

I like the layer of coffee grounds and then grass clippings on top of that because the worms will come right up and start moving the coffee grounds into the soil while the grass clippings keeps things moist and out of the sun. That and I'm too lazy to mix things up that I don't have to.

I get more grass clippings than leaves. Grass clippings disappear faster but won't blow away in the wind.

Thanks for the pix
..

Rott,

I usually wet things down a bit while mixing in the wheelbarrow - just so the UCGs don't just go to the bottom. After the mulch is settled in the gardens, it just stays there - well, it actually disappears but that's OK since my soil used to be pure crap. :O)

So many fellow coffee ground people on this site its a great Xmas present! Good advice with adding to wood chips, lawn clippins, or leaves, and keeping the whole stack moist is a good tip also.
I've found that when they are used in isolation it can cause problems with crusting and preventing air and water flow to the lower levels, so always have some additional materials ready to add.
When adding to the worm farm, the best results seem to come from letting the bag of UCG ferment for a week or two and then add them in with lawn clippings or kitchen scraps, again never on its own.

Here is a link that might be useful: Ground to Ground