Coffee grounds?

I drink way too much coffee!! Does anyone use coffee grounds in their garden? I have heard of this but don't know anyone who does. Not sure if this is for beardless or bearded iris. Seems like a big waste, all the coffee grounds I throw away, especially if I can use them for something else. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

I also drink waaay to much..but I compost them....I compost most anything...lol..I don't waste much....lol

I'm pretty sure Pirl uses them on her Japanese. I'll ask her to come over.

I probably should compost too, and thanks Polly!

I sprinkle coffee grounds and crushed egg shells all over the garden every spring. I just get a handfull and let fly. BEV

Ditto here, or goes on the compost pile that will be added to the iris fields

D

I asked Pirl, and she said she sprinkles her coffee grounds around the JIs, and also the hostas.

someone once told me that putting the coffee grounds around the black iris makes them bloom blacker. don't know as how I believe it, but she swore it worked.

Never heard that one...must be like the one where my iris changed color!

If she believes and feels it nothing wrong with that at all.

They do wonders to get more worms there and that for sure helps with the iris.

D

Yes, put coffee grounds on almost anything! I have used mine for years. My soil is slightly alkaline so I put them on the plants that need acid soil -- hydrangeas, a rhododendron and a magnolia. But if your soil isn't alkaline, put it on anything you like. They provide much needed humus and nutrition, and yes the worms love them and eat them and leave their castings and loosen your soil where they have been. Can't beat them with a stick!

I've always just added mine to the compost, but I will have to try it on the irises. Nothing better than worms!

If you google 'coffee grounds fertilizer', there are a number of sites that cover your discussion.
The best I saw was 'en.allexperts.com'. The common link will not get to where you need
to go. Google first and then select the site you want.

then my irises must be incredible happy, because when weeding this week I've unearthed hundreds of fat sassy earthworms. wish I had time to go fishing!

editted to add - there were none in the clay before I amended it!

This message was edited Apr 4, 2009 12:13 AM

Yep, bonjon. Earthworms come to eat the organic matter that you have put in your soil -- leaves, pine needles, coffee grounds, whatever. They leave their very find castings and aerate the soil. You are doing things right if you have lots of earthworms.

just call me "ready to go fishing".....if you can ever get me out of the iris beds

Bonjon, we must think alike. After gardening, my next favorite thing to do is go fishing!

Oldgardenrose, I went to the link you mentioned and learned quite a bit. If sold in bags the numbers would be 2 - 0.33 - 1. Not slow release, nitrogen available pretty fast. Is acid, useful on plants for which you would apply acid food, not ideal for plants that like sweet soil, pH is 3.5 to 5.

Betty, good to know about the worms. Also read another article that said earthworms consider coffee grounds better than ice cream.

Polly, guess that is why Pirl uses them on her irises.

Boy, I sure have a lot to do in my garden this year!

Don't we all! If you give your plants enough organic matter you will have tons of earthworms, just like bonjon. I have plenty, too, especially in my compost piles.

I'll have to start saving my coffee grounds for my iris also. I knew they were good to put on acid loving plants, but I didn't think of putting them on the iris.

I use to be so scared of earthworms....took a lot bravery to get used to being able to work in my flowerbeds and not react to seeing or touching them. I use to have to just abandon the gardening before I made myself confront the fear. I still will not pick them up in my bare hands, but I can now gently move them out of my way when planting new plants if I use my little planting shovel. And, I can hand scoop up dirt with them in it if I am wearing gardening gloves.

I do not have a clue where or when I develped this fear....I hate having it. The spiders, catepillars, grubs, etc. don't bother me....just the earthworms. (shrugs shoulders)

Nana3

I talk to the earthworms & tell them if they want to survive--get away from my weeding tools.

Happy Sunday BIF's!! A few years ago we hauled in some compost that was full of night crawlers!! Now that is a worm!! They are probably 12" long and writhe like crazy when uncovered!! I'm not afraid , but immediately scream!! Not pretty ! LOL pic Banshee IB Smith 05.

Then Nana gather you are not hip on the snakes either, if they get in my way, I pick them up and toss them into the pasture.

D

Dee,
If it tells you anything....I use the product "SerpentGuard" liberally. I have 2 gallons sitting downstairs right now that was just delivered a few days ago.

We have Copperheads really bad here in KY where I live....I am always afraid of picking up a pile of leaves and scooping one up....and....I am so afraid of my young grandchildren running up on one and not seeing it.

All I can say is ..."You are one brave soul". I just scream and run.

Nana3

I like to go fishing too. I always tell folks about my N.C. trout-fishing record. Have you heard?
I have fallen in the river more times in one fishing trip that anyone in the state.

Well if I lived where copperheads where I would be afraid too, but here in the valley mostly gopher snakes and racers and they are totally harmless except to the varmits and that is great,

I am not a brave soul, just have a son at 42 still has snakes and have had to care for them when he is gone.

D

I love worms and snakes. We don't have any poisonous around here either, though.

I used to be afraid of bats. A baby bat got tangled in my long hair when I was a child. But I've since come to respect them.

I am deathly afraid of rats (thank gosh none around), and Doctors, LOL. I avoid them at all costs.

I think that doctors are more relaxed than they used to be; dentist is a very nice guy (and a gardener) but that doesn't mean that I like to see him. I get novicane & listen to classical music on the radio when he drills. They know my station. No copperheads around here, there were in CT. Just garter snakes *I wish they were big enough to catch woodchucks.

My dentist is my daughter, so that doesn't scare me.

Last time I went to the Dr. he said it had been 16 years, and 14 before that since I had been to him. That's my family Dr. I do the things I have to do, but other than that I stay well away. Thank gosh I'm healthy.

Had a new experience last week--EMG That means they stick needles in you; ouff.

I have never heard of an EMG. Doesn't sound good. Are you okay, IrisMA?
As for snakes, I think they are interesting and I have never hurt one on purpose, but I do give them a wide berth. I grew up around lots and lots of poisonous snakes -- and non-poisonous ones, in South Louisiana. As a result, I just slowly back off when I see a snake and let it go its way. I don't don't bother to try to identify it. I just let it be.
Copperheads are the most dangerous poisonous snake in the US because they don't have a rattle or a wild color to warn people away. It is way to easy to accidentally step on one or pick it up. I saw that happen once with a timber rattler, too, because it looked so much like a small branch on a stack of wood. Luckily the person threw it and was not injured. Pretty scary.
But if you don't like rodents, don't hurt your snakes. I wish my garter snakes were big enough to eat gophers.

The only snakes I've ever seen have been on TV and I prefer it that way.

We have rattlesnakes here and copperheads. There is an area around my old shop (sold husband's pottery) that had a sub-species of rattler and they had a lot of yellow on them.
We have black snakes too. Often 6' long, my husband spotted one attacking a robin nest. He ran over and climbed the tree until he could reach the snake's tail and gave him a jerk and down he came. Unfortunately he had eaten 2 of the robins. I went to pick him up so we could relocate him but he was faster than me. He caught me in the "ham" of my hand, just below the thumb and shook my hand like a dog will. We still put him in a burlap bag and hauled him off.
I thought my mother-in-law was going to faint. But I just washed my hand good and put antiseptic on it and never got an infection. However, for several weeks, I would feel a little pinch, and out came a snake tooth that was embedded under the skin. I had fun freaking out the teenagers where I worked with the snake teeth.

I would have fainted woodspirit! We have copperheads and a few rattlers down in the hollows but thankfully I don't see them in the yard only the blk snakes. I killed one that had climbed up the bluebird post and was after the babies! If it is a little green snake, I can leave them alone but the others scare me.

Pirl, you don't know how lucky you are not to see them!

Teresa in KY

Hey Robin, No one who met you would ever take you for a coffee drinker LOL

I compost them as well and they are great mixing strait into beardless beds as they are acidic (not that I need my soil any more acidic than it is) but it make the soil easier to work as well and with my clay that is always a good thing.

LOLOLO, IrisMa, that's funny, talking to the worms.

So Pirl actually puts the grounds on TB's or is that too acidic? I need to get my butt out there and build a compost pile. I worry about Copper Heads getting into the compost bend. I was clearing acreage last week and leaf blowing in clean and a baby snake was hiding under the leaves and I leaf blew him clear into the next acre. Dee, I cannot believe you can pick those suckers up. NO WAY!!!!! Mice, I like they are too cute, I tried to save a baby one once.

as for snakes. we have inground pool. about this time of year the peeper frogs move in, send up their mating calls late into the night right under our bedroom windows. and this is time we get ready to clean off the pool patio. one year we were powerwashing it, and I was trying to broom out debris and leaves from under the hostas beside the patio so DH would not blow it everywhere (into the water) with the washer. my broom hit something solid and immovable. so what did I do? reach under the hostas, of course. lifted the leaves, poking with my broom, only to discover my hands and face inches away from frog-fat sleeping copperhead. I'd roused him from his shady nap. he was 3 inches from the solid wood fence, so he just moseyed back under it. a bit faster when the noise started.

didn't stop screaming "copperhead". stopped when I went hoarse. of course DH jumped back and didn't come to my rescue, at our house, that's my job.

oh man I would love nightcrawlers in my yard! or in my compost pile!

Well I do my darnest to stay away from Docs, but that will not be the case this fall...after plantback. But this time it is needed. Dentist are on the list with the morticians, HATE to see them at all...
I do ONLY when there is not another way out.

Snakes, just so darn thankful they are not poisonous here, in Eastern OR have rattlers.

Lucy how are you...

With Anita's love for fishing, she probably only composts for the worms, but get this she catchs and throws the fish back while I am a lousy fisherman and I think the fish know this as I caught it and if legal catch, it will get eatten.

D

fish yummy. anita, what's wrong, you fish vegan or something?

the thing I miss most about living in Idaho is Ririe Reservoir, stocked with fingerling trout that grew up and interbred with coho salmon, ending with pink fleshed troutmon! yummy. but you can't fall in - it's all snowmelt.

Everyone, I'm fine, just a test. Muscles have electrical impulses, didn't know we all walked around sounding. Doc was checking the neoropathy in my feet. Hand tingles turned out to be carpel tunnel. From weeding? I don't know, but it has to be done. I don't like fish, but can eat scollops so I can order them on our birthdays or anniversary when we go out to dinner--fish eating husband likes them.

Ok I love snakes they kill and eat the gizzillion rodents we have around here. Copperheads here are usually around water so few worries here and if one happens by a stick is usually enough to get them on their way. Rat snakes and Black snakes (which by the way are also rat snakes, like saying a black lab or a yellow lab) and corn snakes are rescued and put in my barn which has an abundence of rodents. Wish they would take care of the squirrels as well but maybe I can get a boa for that.

FISHING, love it, FISH- hate it. I do not eat fish so they fish I catch go back to where they came from THE WATER! I debarb the hooks so no damage and off they go on their merry way we're all friends. If someone wants fish, I deliver them in the live well. They can clean etc. I don't eat them, I am sure NOT going to clean them.

Lucy I feel your pain I hate those stupid things. Had to have it twice now one said I had carple tunnel the other said no. They wanted to repeat, well let's just say my no had more than 2 letters
:)
A

Woodspirit1, that is quite a record!

We have Michigan rattlesnakes but none that I have ever seen. Beardless still aren't up yet at all. TBs about 1-2 inches tall.

It is supposed to be spring, but still haven't been able to work in the garden. Snow, rain, mud, still cold.

5-Day Forecast for Houghton Lake, MI
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

36° F | 22° F 30% chance of snow
34° F | 22° F 70% chance of snow showers
45° F | 25° F
43° F | 23° F
43° F | 23° F

Wow, Wednesday will be a heat wave.