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Keurig coffee, soil, and grass seed

8 years ago

Between my wife and I, about 80 Keurig coffee cups ("K-Cups") are brewed in about a 2 week period.

I have been saving the coffee grinds by using a razor to slice open the top and then dumping them into an old Scott's EZ Seed jug. When the jug gets full, I walk around the lawn and sprinkle this stuff over the yard.

Recently, I've started considereding something:

By the time the jug is full, it is about a month or two since the first k-cups were emptied into it. new stuff is being added daily, but the fist few cups added are very old. is thst a problem?

also:

a thought occurred to me:

thr k-cups themselves are about the size of a shot glass. And after they are used, there is a convenient hole inside the bottom for draining water.

Could it be safe to throw a grass seed or two in there? would grass grow in the straight coffee, or would I need to add some soil from the yard?

my intention would be using the k-cups to germinate and grow some grass for patching up weak spots in the lawn...like small sod plugs?

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Comments (3)

User
8 years ago
Age: Not a problem. Older (or even slightly middle aged) coffee grounds can and will grow lots of white, thready fungi. That's no issue and even completely white and hairy coffee grounds are perfectly fine to use and won't cause problems.

I've never tried growing seed in coffee grounds, but growers use pure compost all the time. I'd say it's worth a shot with a few seeds to see how they act--I'm not sure if it'll work. I grow annual seed in light potting soil, about 1/3 compost, 2/3 other stuff, so I have no experience here.
owlnsr thanked User
owlnsr
Original Author
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
I'm going to do this as an experiment in the spring.

Put grass seed in Keurig cups filled with the leftover grinds only; in cups filled with grinds and topsoil; and in cups filled with only topsoil. I will also test the differences between KBG and TTTF in this experiment. And then also note the follow-up success once removed from the cups and planted in the lawn (maybe half in June and the rest in September). It should be easy to control for all the other things like water and sunlight.

I have a hunch that recycling these used plastic k-cups will work great for growing singular grass plugs. For convenience sake, I hope that the cups filled only with coffee grinds will be successful.

If if I understand this properly, coffee is acidic until brewed; all of the acid is washed into the beverage, leaving behind coffee grinds with a neutral ph.
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User
8 years ago
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/lane/sites/default/files/documents/cffee07.pdf

Assuming the source is to be believed (which I think it is), coffee grounds have a natural pH between 6.5 and 6.8--essentially neutral, and certainly more than neutral enough to grow grass seeds. Most seeds grow quite well during their initial development phases even in mixes with a pH in the 5.x range.

If you made me guess? I think they'll grow fine in UCG (Used Coffee Grounds). The nitrogen release levels might be a tad high, so I wouldn't apply any nitrogen fertilizers. The grounds will decay over time, but since you'll be planting these pretty fast, that shouldn't matter and the mass loss won't be an issue.

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