Plantita Saturdays: Composting Coffee Grinds

Since being weaned away from instant coffee, we've been amassing a good amount of coffee grinds from our daily cup. It was a shame to just throw it out, so I read up on composting coffee grinds. I learned it's best to let it dry a bit first before using it. 

Composting coffee grinds.

I've been using the grinds as compost in two ways. I sometimes put it directly on the plant. I just put a little since I'm not sure if it might be too acidic for the plant. It's a good fertilizer for the bamboo, they seem to like it. 

I read and watched a couple of videos on composting and for a few months now I've been adding the coffee grinds and filter to the compost bin. I just started a new one since I had a huge pile I dried in the past few weeks. 

Found a used broas tin, cleaned it up and asked Sweetie to put some holes in it. Placed all the grinds in. To hasten the process, I added some compost from the existing bin. That effectively transferred some of the worms to the new bin. To make it more delectable for them I add fresh discard veggies every so often.

The compost has to have a good balance between green and dry ingredients. Green ingredients are usually veggies, grinds, and fresh leaves (big plus if you can add malunggay leaves). Dry ingredients are the filter, dry leaves, paper or cut up toilet rolls. If your bin is smelly it means you need to add more dry ingredients.  

Keep the bin moist, so add water every few days. Don't cover the bin fully because the critters need a bit of air. I learned that the hard way when we fully closed the second bin, all the worms died from too much water and lack of air. They eventually came back when we fixed the issue. Mix the content weekly so the workers go through all the material. You'll know the bin is ready when the worms move out of the bin. 

Next time I want to try the three layer compost bin. I'm eyeing to use an old plastic drawer. 

#BeKind #StaySafe