I’ve always known that coffee is magical. Well, if not magical, then close to it. I’m a writer, after all, and I’m pretty sure that writers uphold at least half the coffee industry’s sales. But this also means that we dump tons of used coffee grounds into the garbage on a daily basis. Now, coffee grounds by themselves are not bad for the environment — in fact, I’m going to tell you how to use them in your yard in a minute — but they do contribute to landfill bulk. Ever the social beverage, coffee mingles with other waste in stinky piles of trash to create methane, which we all know is a greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. So instead of just chucking the grounds into the garbage, try something a little different next time.
When you’re done with your first pot of coffee of the day (oh, you only have one pot of coffee a day? … well, okay then), you will have a bunch of perfect mineral-rich grounds with which you can infuse greatness into your garden. The strong smell of coffee that we coffee lovers enjoy has the opposite effect on insects that are bad for your flowers. Not only do coffee grounds repel slugs and ants (although opinions are mixed), but they also discourage neighborhood cats from digging in your flowerbeds. So, mound the stuff up around your favorite plants to prevent pests of the slimy, stingy, or fluffy sort.
If you’re growing hydrangeas, use coffee grounds to affect their color. Coffee grounds add extra acidity to the soil around hydrangeas. On a chemical level, this increased acidity makes it easier for the plant to absorb naturally occurring aluminum in the dirt. The effect is pretty blue clusters of flowers. Although coffee won’t affect the vibrancy of the flowers — pale blue flowers will remain pale blue, for instance — coffee grounds let you play with the color to change pinker blossoms into various hues of blue, or maybe a shade of purple in between.
Seedlings thrive off the nitrogen content in coffee, so give them a boost by making a natural fertilizer from the grounds. Make a “tea” of coffee grounds by adding a quarter cup of grounds to four or five gallons of water. Let the mixture sit overnight then pour it over all of your plants the next morning for a nutrient boost.
