coffee grounds

>>McDonalds uses Starbuck coffee

i find that hard to believe....

once we were in NorthWestern Wi (Chetek i believe) and a restaurant there served Starbucks.

the gal explained to us how she went about the process to serve Sbux... and how much it costs. it was HUGE money annually (i dont recall the amount) but HUGE.

I seriously doubt that MickyD's would fork over that kind of cash just for the coffee.

**edited to add

i searched and could not find the brand. They just call it "Premium Roast" and Arabica bean.

I did read that in the Seattle area - they use Seattle's Best, which is owned by Sbux.

I have not tried McD's new coffee, but i always liked their coffee... i just really dont eat their food. (but - that is also before they improved their menu)

sorry to be so OT

This message was edited May 8, 2007 1:21 PM

Some people even dispose of tea bags in the garden. Here's a link telling about it if you drink a lot of ice tea during the hot summer months.

http://cahe.nmsu.edu/ces/yard/2005/081305.html

Well, speaking of coffee grounds...I hit the mother load!!!! I work at a hospital that has an Au Bon Pain coffee shop. I get my coffee there every morning. I just happened to ask the manager what they do with their coffee grounds. He said "why, do you need them for your garden?" I brought him a small wastebasket and they fill it up for me every day. I leave work every night with at least 25-30 lbs of coffee grounds, perhaps more. I haven't weighed the bag yet. I now have a HUGE tupperware container in the garage to store them in. I mix the grounds into my compost, I used tons of it for a layer in lasagna gardening and mixed some into my vegetable garden bed in preparation of planting. I read where it attracts the worms and I had no worms in the worse soil ever. Yep, that's right NO WORMS!!! Well, I do now. I can hear them screaming every night "Feed me, feed me". I've got my own Little Shop of Horrors right here in Coventry, RI.

Carol

WTG! That's fantastic...and very handy to have them ready for pick up at work, too. Good thinking!

Suzy

I'm getting my coffee grounds from the coffee bar at work. Same report. Started with NO worms. Dug a trench to put some table scraps in last weekend, and I now have HUGE, FAT worms. At least 5" long and just as juicy as a fish would like.

Only made one fatal mistake, though. I mentioned the HUGE, FAT worms to my DH who thinks he's a fisherman....

Told me he threw 4 or 5 worms in the "compo" pile today, and when he gets ready to go fishing he didn't want to hear about getting some worms...he'll get 4-5....

Gymgirl-I took the old compost out of my compost bin and put it in a garbage bag to hold for lasagna gardening so I could start a new batch of compost. It was in the bag about 2 weeks before I went to dump it on the raised bed. I was astounded at the amount of worms I had in that bag. Huge, monsterous clumps of worms!!!! My DH kept saying that his grandfather would have "died and gone to heaven" if he had seen that. His grandfather was quite the fisherman and hunter. He had his own compost bin for when he wanted to go fishing. I remember my mother-in-law telling me that during the depression, the family ate quite well because he was such an accomplished fisherman and hunter.

Well, I'm dying to see how many worms I can attract. Right now we are having an incredible rain storm. My rain barrels are all filled up again and my lasagna gardens are getting a much needed drink. Hopefully the worms are active!!!

Carol

Carol,
Glad you mentioned bagging your compost, as I had a question. I bagged some up in a plastic potting mix bag, more than just a coupla weeks. More like 7-8. When I opened it up it had a funny odor I associate with grub worms. I was a little horrified it would be filled with breeding grubs, but I didn't find any.

My question is what to do with the compost that's broken down already, if I'm not going to use it right away? I'm using some of it in the potting mix when I repot existing plants. But, I'm not doing this in a hurry. This weekend, I bought some of the clear Sterilite containers with lids, to put my potting mix in. Easier to reach down into than the bags they come in. Should I drill holes for air circulation? I was thinking of putting come of the finished compost into a container too. Please let me know.

Thanks,

Linda

Carol, that's great being able to pick up the coffee grounds right at work! My daughter and son work at a restaurant and it never occured to me to ask them to bring home the coffee grounds! Thanks!

Gymgirl - THinking that smell is from being anaerobic let some air in and leave the lid off the containers - why drill holes if you want to use it for something else down the road OR if you drill holes you may want to start a worm bin with it down the road and speaking of......and if you want KILLLER verms then you put them in a bin and start feeding garlic.

MQN,
Won't the ants get in? Probably not, if I keep it moist as it's supposed to be. Good idea, turning it into a worm bin, til' I'm ready to use it. Thanks for the suggestion!

I've had a strange experience with coffee grounds. I got lots from Starbucks and put them on top of a bed and now the soil is almost water resistant at first, of course it does eventually absorb, just takes a while.

I am thinking it is the oils in the grounds. It isn't really a problem, I just need to get out there with a rake and work them in better.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I'm using quite a few coffee grinds in my worm bin. I mixed last summer's batch with coffee grinds and put it in a small bed. No problem with the water absorption. In fact, this bed drains like a sieve. The water just goes straight through. I'm loving it.

I agree you probably need to work those grinds into the the top 6-8" of your soil. Godspeed!

I experienced that with my first lasagna beds, which had many layers of stuff and coffee on top, that's just how it worked out, otherwise I would have put the CG lower down in the lasagna. If I don't sort of "shake" them in (like with a rake) they do tend to shed water. So it is a good idea to not just plop them down on the straw/mulch/soil, etc., but work them in a little.

Just a cautionary note: I sprinkled Starbucks grounds around very liberally last year, and one plant that I adored (Campanula poscharskyana 'Blue Waterfall') that had been very exuberant promptly died. Nothing else seemed to mind the coffee grounds, but I was really sad about the Waterfall. So now I compost coffee grounds first.

My compost pile is just a huge (it's probably 5' now) stack of stuff inside a chicken wire "fence." I dont bother to turn it -- it is passive compost at its best. (It is mostly old leaves, and in the fall we'll put it through the shredder, let it sit over the winter, and then use it next year.) Every night I put kitchen vegetable scraps on top. The raccoons or squirrels must find it tasty, because my little cockapoo dog scrambles up to the top and "marks" the pile every morning without fail. I like to think he's contributing to the cycle of nature here.

Happy,
That sounds like my process, only I dig a trench down the middle, evenly dump in my table scraps and coffee grinds and filters, and cover the trench over. No odor to attract the wild animals, AND because of the coffee grinds, the earthworms will show up and get to work on helping to break down the pile! I started with a few wimpy worms, and now I have HUGE, beautiful, WELL-FED earthworms that are just happy, happy, happy!

Sadly, there are no trenches and nothing "even" about our process. I hand a pot of compostable stuff to a teenager, and the teenager dumps it on (or at least near) the compost pile. The dog them brings back a watermelon rind or corn cob to me as a present. Occasionally I put a pile of weeds on top of the mess to weigh it all down.

Guess I'll stop by Starbucks this weekend to pick up some grounds!

Oh, I am feeling your pain....

Truly, no pain (except for maybe the presents from our dogs). At the end of the season, we put the whole mess through the shredder. And next spring, I'll have a gi-nourmous pile of perfectly wonderful stuff to plant everything in. I like it much better the the pre-packaged potting mixes -- not to mention that the price is really affordable. And it takes no work at all. (It's far enough from our house that I don't care about squirrels, raccoons etc. poking around in it now, plus the dogs like to chase them away.)