I write this blog while enjoying this delicious cup of coffee.

VOF de kunst sang it years ago "All work falls silent, if the coffee lady wants it."

Coffee is not only good for people, but only moderately (but that is the case with everything), but it has also proved its worth in the (vegetable) garden, not the drink but the prut !!

If you wonder how that works, read this blog.

Coffee as a fertilizer

Coffee starch consists largely of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium and that is just the three most important fertilizers. You can find them on fertilizer packaging as N + P + K.

Actually it is not surprising that these substances are in it because the coffee beans are the cotyledons of the coffee seed and must therefore contain all the nutrients for a first growth of the new coffee plant.

moderation

Use coffee grounds in moderation as it causes the soil to become slightly more acidic. And through the nitrogen you get elongated plants that are susceptible to diseases and lice. So moderation is required.

worms

Worms, like me, are crazy about coffee. For some time I mix coffee brewing through my vegetable garden and it is now swarming with worms.

Worms ensure that the soil is oxygenated and they convert waste into sustainable fertilizers.

It even seems that you can keep a wormer bowl on some coffee grounds, although I do not understand why you should not throw other organic waste into it.

slugs

Caffeine is deadly for snails and that is a nice side effect because snails are not friends of mine. You would almost start to think why are snails actually invented? But even snails are useful, they clean up dead plant parts and convert this into nutrients, but not in my vegetable garden!

cats

Cats also do not have the same smell on the coffee. So if you have a place in the garden where cats are a nuisance to you, you use generous coffee grounds.

oyster mushrooms

Yes there are nowadays buckets where you can grow your oyster mushrooms yourself. I am testing this myself, it works like this:

The grow kit consists of a bucket with lid containing a number of holes that are covered with an air-permeable tape and a starter (mixture with mycellium). First, you take a quantity of coffee and you mix it with some water until it looks like dark chocolate and mix it with the start micellium. Cover and wait. Occasional cheating can and then you see a white mold on your coffee, if it is almost healed is going to the next batch coffee grounds out as long as it is filled to the bucket, it will flower the fungus and break the oyster through the holes to the outside, if the growth is at a standstill you can pick them. After that, regrowth follows.

So you see but there are countless possibilities for the use of the black gold coffee grounds. And now hope my garden will not smell as much as the Douwe Egberts factory.