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Key Points
- Coffee grounds improve soil by adding organic matter that enhances structure, drainage, and moisture retention.
- Adding coffee grounds to compost is better than using them directly in soil to avoid nutrient imbalances.
- Using coffee grounds helps the environment by recycling waste while supporting healthy plant growth.
Reusing kitchen scraps in your garden is a win-win for your plants, the environment, and your budget. And if you just so happen to love gardening as much as you love drinking coffee, you'll be happy to learn that coffee grounds are on the good-list for your compost bin.
But there are a few caveats and limitations to using coffee grounds to improve soil health. We talked to two gardening experts to learn more about the benefits of using kitchen scraps to improve soil and the best practices to keep in mind.
Meet the Experts
- Lauren Click is the founder and executive director of Let’s Go Compost, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit that helps reduce waste through composting systems like worm farms.
- Justin Hancock is a horticulturist at Costa Farms, a family-run farm that grows more than 1,500 varieties of indoor and outdoor plants.
Yes, Coffee Grounds are Beneficial for Soil
Both gardening experts we interviewed agree that coffee grounds are beneficial for soil health, and they even use them in their personal gardening projects. Justin Hancock, horticulturist at Costa Farms, explains why they work.
"As coffee grounds break down into compost, they 'feed' the soil, improving its structure, drainage, moisture retention, and ecology," he says. "They’re a source of organic matter. And, in general, the more organic matter a soil has (especially if there’s a high sand or clay content), the better your plants will like it."
Lauren Click, founder and executive director of Let’s Go Compost, compares coffee grounds to something you've probably paid good money for in the past.
"Coffee grounds act like a slow-release nitrogen fertilizer which supports leafy growth," Click says.
How to Use Coffee Grounds for Soil Health
To really reap the benefits of coffee grounds for soil health, don't add them directly to your soil. Instead, Click and Hancock agree that adding coffee grounds to your compost pile is best.
"Coffee grounds are just one of the ingredients for healthy soil, but shouldn't be the only thing you add in," Click says. "It'd be like making a fruit smoothie but only adding in 20 bananas and nothing else. It would just be a blended banana, not a fruit smoothie."
Additionally, adding too much of the grounds directly to the soil can cause more harm than good, which is why Hancock says it's best to add them to compost instead.
"The decomposition process uses nitrogen, so adding a lot of coffee grounds could mean the microbes are stealing this important nutrient from your plants."
Click is a big proponent of adding the grounds to worm composters since they also add a bit of grit for the worms. And if you aren't a coffee drinker or need to supplement your stock, she has found that local coffee shops will give large amounts of used grounds away for free.
Don't Expect a Big Impact on Soil pH or Weed Suppression
Before you go adding coffee grounds to your soil with your acid-loving plants in mind or to alter the color of your hydrangeas, Hancock says you might want to try something else instead.
"You’ll often see people recommending adding coffee grounds to soil to acidify it, but that’s largely based on myth," he says. "Used coffee grounds aren’t that acidic. You probably won’t see much of a difference in your soil pH by adding them."
On a similar note, he's also been there, done that when it comes to trying out coffee grounds as a mulch replacement, and he doesn't recommend it.
"The coffee grounds didn’t do as great of a job suppressing weeds as other mulches and would get unsightly fungi growing on top during wet periods," he says.
Read the original article on The Spruce
