Recycled Coffee Grounds

Our local Starbucks recycles their coffee grounds by bagging them up in large bags and setting them in a container by the door for people to take and use in their gardens.  We don't go to Starbucks very often to drink coffee.  But, Tom goes there a couple of times a week to pick up these free bags of coffee grounds.  A full bag weighs about 5 pounds.  Here's pictures of what they look like:

Coffee grounds have up to 2 percent nitrogen, some phosphoric acid and varying amounts of potassium, all of which are great for plants.  Coffee grounds are on the acidic side and thus have a low pH.  Your garden soil should be close to neutral.  Since much of Oklahoma has soil that is on the alkaline side, it is okay to add coffee grounds directly to the soil.  The coffee grounds will help to neutralize the soil.  But, you should not go overboard on this.  If in doubt, you can take a sample of your soil to the local county extension office and have a soil test run.

Of course if you are growing blueberries or azalias or other plants that like acidic soil, then you can probably add as many coffee grounds as you want!

You can put coffee grounds in your compost pile, too.  To balance out the pH when adding coffee grounds to your compost pile, I've read that adding a cup of agricultural lime to every ten pounds of grounds is a good rule of thumb.

I appreciate Starbucks and their efforts to recycle and keep as much waste out of the landfill as possible.