by Erika Armyn

Created on: January 29, 2009

It's a morning ritual: rise, put on a pot of Colombian Roast, tuck away a few mugs of the wake-up nectar with your Denver omelet and the daily paper, then move on to breakfast cleanup, tossing the used coffee filter, bulging with spent grounds, onto the trash heap, right along with the eggshells.

Wait a minute. Any savvy gardener knows that those coffee grounds, as well as those mineral-rich eggshells, don't go in the garbage. They go in the garden! Like eggshells, coffee filters and their contents can be thrown directly in the compost heap, for they break down very rapidly. Why toss something in a wasteful plastic trash bag to take up space when it could be working magic on your flowers, plants and veggies?

While the role of caffeine in aiding plant and vegetable growth is and always has been debatable, used coffee grounds, as well as the undrinkable stuff that sits in the coffeepot for too long after brewing, are rich in minerals that are beneficial to a flourishing garden, including sulfur, magnesium, copper, and calcium.

Coffee grounds are also known to contain potassium and phosphorus as well as high levels of nitrogen, an essential element of plant growth commonly found in fertilizers. Coffee's strong nitrogen content makes it ideal for use as an organic vegetable food, and working grounds into vegetable beds will yield stellar results come harvest time. Be sure to combine the grounds with brown material, such as decaying oak leaves or straw, to offset its high acidity.

The acidic nature of coffee increases the pH level of soil, which is good news to the gardener cultivating such acid-loving plants as rhododendrons, hydrangeas, camellias, gardenias, azaleas and blueberry shrubs. These plants thrive in soil with a high pH level. Not all acidic plants, though, crave that kind of fortification. African violets prefer acidic soil, but do not respond well to coffee.

If snails and slugs have invaded your flower patch and are chowing down on your lilies and daffodils, sprinkle some stale black coffee or grounds on the premises. Whether or not the caffeine is what kills them, garden enthusiasts who use coffee compost see a reduction in these slow-moving, slimy pests. In contrast, coffee acts like an aphrodisiac to worms, which propagate and promote rich, loamy soil.

Diverting something from rotting in a landfill to enriching your own pretty patch of earth is such a small but significant step in reducing our negative impact on the environment. Tomorrow morning, take your routine kitchen cleanup outside!

Learn more about this author, Erika Armyn.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.