How To Use Coffee Grounds For Grass

You’ll want to think twice before you toss your used coffee grounds in the trash every day. Those grounds can actually be used to feed and increase the health of your lawn. Here’s everything you’ll want to know about using coffee grounds for grass.

Advantages Of Coffee Grounds For Grass

There are quite a few reasons that used grounds are commonly used on lawns, such as:

All-Natural Fertilizer

Because they contain nitrogen along with phosphorous and potassium (N-P-K), most people use coffee grounds as fertilizer for grass. These are released slowly as the grounds decompose.

So they feed your lawn over time. And of course, unlike most commercial fertilizers used coffee grounds don’t contain any chemicals. Grounds are also something most of us have access to on a daily basis and would otherwise end up in the local landfill.

Worms Love Grounds

When adding grounds you’ll also be helping to feed worms, and worms are beneficial for your lawn. By feeding them you’ll be ensuring that you get all the added benefits that worms provide for both the grass and soil.

For example, worms help to aerate the lawn with the tunnels they create and also leave behind their waste in the form of nutrient-rich castings. These castings function as a natural fertilizer and give your grass fast access to nutrients and minerals.

Keep Slimy Pests Away

Another helpful thing that makes coffee grounds good for grass is the fact that when using them it helps to keep backyard pests such as snails and slugs away from your lawn.

These slimy pests actually target young grass and by eating the shoots and roots end up killing the entire plant. They are very sensitive to caffeine so when they come into contact with coffee grounds slugs and snails will typically leave the area.

Adding Coffee Grounds To Your Grass

You can add grounds straight to your grass however you’ll want to have enough of them to cover your whole lawn first. You can do this by saving your used grounds in a bin after you drink your daily cup of coffee until you have enough. Many coffee shops are more than happy to give away their used grounds instead of throwing them out.

And this is something you may want to take advantage of if you’d like to accumulate a large amount of grounds quickly. When you’ve saved up enough, you’ll want to empty your grounds out onto a tarp and leave them in the sun for about a day or so to dry out. Once your grounds are dry, you can apply them by themselves or along with a nitrogen fertilizer evenly over the entire surface of your lawn.

When using coffee grounds for lawn care it’s very important that you only add a light layer of grounds. If you add too much the grounds may become compacted blocking water and oxygen from reaching your grass resulting in lawn damage.

Adding Coffee Grounds To Compost

Another option would be to add your grounds to your compost and then in the future add the compost to your lawn. This will give your grounds time to break down first into a form that will allow your grass to absorb the nutrients and trace minerals more quickly.

While adding grounds can help to increase the quality of compost, you’ll want to make sure that your compost bin or pile is made up of no more than 20% coffee grounds. Any more than this and it can have negative effects. When your compost is ready, usually after a period of about ninety days or so, you can use it as a top dressing for your grass. Apply a thin coat evenly over the entire lawn and give it a good watering.

Using coffee grounds for grass can be an easy and free way to increase the overall health and beauty of your lawn and soil. And of course, they’ll keep snails and slugs away while providing a buffet for helpful garden worms.

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