Read on to find out its other uses in the kitchen. As well as how coffee grounds in soil can help benefit your plants.
By this point, quarantine has already probably gotten everyone trying out at least one new thing. Are you one of the people who rode on the Dalgona coffee trend? Have you ever tried cold brew coffee at home? Maybe you’ve even tried recreating your favorite Starbucks drinks? Most people have tried experimenting with coffee at home. Let’s face it – drinking the same brewed coffee everyday tends to get a little boring.
Here’s some news for you: coffee grounds can be used for things other than making coffee. If you’ve accidentally bought too much coffee grounds or maybe you’ve bought a pack that doesn’t taste so well. You don’t have to waste them by throwing them away!
Uses for Unused Coffee Grounds
There are actually several uses for unused coffee grounds that don’t require much effort from your end. One of them is using coffee grounds to neutralize odors. You can put a few tablespoons in a sock (or something similar). Put it in your shoes or gym bag to get rid of the smell of sweat and other unpleasant odors.
You can also just place some coffee grounds in a bowl. Place it inside your fridge to get rid of strong smells from fish or spoiled food that you might have forgotten about. Rub coffee grounds on your hands to get rid of smells after chopping onions and garlic.
Another use for coffee grounds is for cleaning your sink and scouring your pots and pans. Coffee grounds are a natural cleaning scrub and is especially good if you don’t like using chemicals for cleaning.
One quite famous use for coffee grounds is for exfoliating the skin. All you have to do is mix coffee grounds with coconut oil and apply them directly on your skin to get rid of dead skin cells and reduce cellulite on affected areas. This same mixture can also be used to remove dark circles under the eyes due to the caffeine and antioxidants that coffee grounds contain. If you want to use it as a lip scrub, simply mix it with honey.
For Hair Growth
If you want to stimulate hair growth and keep your scalp clean, massage a handful of coffee grounds onto your scalp before shampooing.
Coffee grounds can also be used to repel insects and pests in your garden. Place them on the soil surrounding your plants and it may help prevent pests from eating your plants. Coffee grounds can also help get rid of fleas in pets. After bathing your pet, scrub coffee grounds onto their fur and rinse it off. It’s said to repel fleas due to its scent.
Most importantly, coffee grounds in soil can be used as fertilizer or compost for plants.
Coffee Grounds in Potted Plants
You might have noticed that drinking brewed coffee leaves coffee grounds at the bottom of your mug. If you have plants at home, you can actually use these coffee grounds to fertilize them.
Coffee contains nitrogen, magnesium, and calcium that would be helpful for plants to grow green leaves and strong stems.
To use coffee grounds as fertilizer, all you have to do is dilute the coffee grounds such that it would look like tea. Usually, for every 1 part of coffee grounds, you have to add about 3 parts of water so that it wouldn’t be too acidic for plants.
Don’t use this to water plants every day. Although it’s being diluted with a lot of water, it would still be acidic for plants if they get fed with it too much.
Coffee grounds can also be used for compost. Just throw them into your compost pit along with used coffee filters and balance them out with ‘brown’ compost materials such as leaves and twigs.
If you’re vermicomposting, you can also feed your worms with coffee grounds as they love it.
Used coffee grounds in potted plants serve as fertilizer and adds organic material that improves drainage and water retention in the soil. Because of this, some gardeners also use them as mulch to lock in the moisture in the soil, especially for plants that need constant and even moisture.
List of Plants that Like Coffee Grounds
Generally, used coffee grounds diluted with water are neutral, so they should do okay with most plants. Remember to only use it as liquid fertilizer and not as replacement for water.
Fresh coffee grounds are much more acidic, so they would only be beneficial for acid-loving plants. It’s also said that fresh coffee grounds help minimize the appearance of weeds among plants and help repel pests and insects (even pets!) due to its caffeine content.
Here’s a list of plants that like coffee grounds:
- Hydrangeas
- Azaleas
- Lilies
- Blueberries
- Radishes
- Carrots
Radishes and carrots are the only root crops that respond favorably to fresh coffee grounds, especially when mixed with soil at planting time.
Remember to never place coffee grounds on tomatoes as it can adversely affect tomatoes in the sense that it may inhibit its growth.
Conclusion
Coffee grounds in soil generally help plants grow better, but the best and safest use for them is as compost. If you’re not sure whether coffee grounds would do well with your plant, it would be best to try out a little amount on a small area just to see how your plants would respond to it. Then, adjust it from there.
Using coffee grounds for other purposes, whether garden-related or not, definitely helps lessen your waste and benefits you in one way or another. If you’re feeling a little artsy, you can even use coffee grounds to dye paper so that you can have that ancient-looking sheet together with the aromatic scent of coffee.
Nevertheless, having read all of these, maybe the next time you brew your coffee, you’d think twice before throwing the remains down the sink. It’s always nice to have coffee grounds in handy – you never know when you’ll need them!
Read my other articles on Urban Gardening and Square foot gardening.
