You enjoy the first sip of coffee every morning, but what do you do with the coffee grounds? It may seem like junk, but it could be a treasure for you!
Coffee grounds provide free organic matter for your garden. Organic matter is anything that gets decomposed into humus.
Humus is organic material that has been converted by beneficial microorganisms into a product that no longer decomposes.
Humus is pure gold in the garden. It is the substance that is leftover long after plants and animals have decomposed. It is brown or black, has a loose and crumbly texture, and is absolutely vital for plants to grow.
Beneficial soil microorganisms live in great quantities in humus and greatly increase soil fertility and health.
I first discovered how wonderful cold-brewed coffee was when I gave some to my houseplants. They seemed to thrive when they got leftover coffee. It especially helps prevent fungal diseases.
But I was still throwing old coffee grounds into the trash. After I started learning how beneficial composting is, all of our coffee grounds went into the compost pile.
It’s a wonderful addition to plants, as it has some antimicrobial properties, and a small amount of nitrogen so could be considered an organic fertilizer.
There are many benefits of coffee grounds for your garden. For example, you can use it to fertilize the soil, keep cats away, and much more!
Coffee grounds are great, but do they make a significant difference in growing tomato plants?
You can consider adding coffee grounds to the tomato plants. But, you may wonder whether it’s the right thing to do or not.
Are Coffee Grounds Good for Tomato Plants?
You don’t need to worry about the caffeine content in spent coffee grounds. There is not enough left after brewing to have a negative effect.
Coffee grounds are slightly acidic, having a ph level of 5.5 to 6.8. Acid-loving plants such as tomato plants like coffee grounds. Tomatoes grow best in soils with a ph of 6.0-6.8 so adding coffee grounds can help to acidify too alkaline soils.
It has Nitrogen in it, which can also help the tomato plants. You can use the coffee grounds for the tomato plants, but it does not contain enough fertilizer to make a significant difference.
The fertilizer you use daily for the tomato plants has the essential nutrients that are a must for the growth and well-being of the plants.
On the other hand, Nitrogen in the coffee grounds is merely 2%. Adding coffee grounds to compost, and then feeding tomato plants compost tea is the best fertilizer for them.
Coffee grounds contain other nutrients, though, and these nutrients are just as valuable as nitrogen content.
What Nutrients Are In Coffee Grounds
Healthy plant growth comes from healthy soil, and that is one of the main reasons fresh coffee grounds help to grow great vegetables. They are a source of food for microbiology in the soil.
Coffee grounds contain nutrients such as:
· 2% Nitrogen
· 0.06% Phosphorus
· 0.6% Potassium
The coffee grounds also contain many trace nutrients such as copper, magnesium, calcium, and more.
Knowing the nutrients in the coffee grounds will make it easier for you to take advantage of this information. However, just adding tomato grounds to your plants won’t be enough.
Knowing how to use the coffee grounds to your advantage is essential.
How to use Coffee Grounds as a Fertilizer for Tomato Plants
There are different ways to use coffee grounds as fertilizer for tomato plants.
Make sure you educate yourself enough before using the coffee grounds or any other such product to grow and nourish the plants in your garden. When you know what’s right, taking care of the tomato plants will be easy.
Consider the following:
· As A Liquid Fertilizer: You can mix 2 cups of used coffee grounds in 5-gallon water. Let it sit overnight, and then use it as a foliar for your tomato plants.
· As Dry Fertilizer: You can sprinkle the coffee grounds on the soil. It’s better if you add it to the compost heap. Know that the coffee grounds can take some time to help the plants grow.
When you brew coffee, the acid from the grounds gets leached into the brewed coffee. Therefore, coffee grounds would be neutral in pH.
· As A Ground Mulch: Using coffee grounds as mulch won’t be ideal as mulch needs to be thick. You would need a large amount of grounds to make a difference in water retention.
The better use of used coffee grounds is to add them to a compost heap. However, adding a layer to the base of your tomato plants will provide a slow-release fertilizer.
· Add to Compost: This is my favorite way of adding the benefits of coffee grounds to my garden.
Add coffee grounds to your compost mixture, as compost is a fertilizer for your tomato plants to help them grow better. Coffee grounds are considered a green material in composting, because of the nitrogen content.
Your compost mixture should be a well-balanced ratio of brown and green for best results.
Other Ways to Fertilize Tomato Plants
When growing tomato plants, you would look for the most effective measures. While it’s true that you need to take care of the basics, you can educate yourself with the options available that could be of added help!
You can also share information if you know other ways to make tomato plants healthy. It’s always good to know what’s available for the better growth of the plants.
The goal is to make the plants healthy so you can enjoy the juicy tomatoes in salad, cooking, and much more!
Consider the following:
Epsom Salt
Epsom salts are another great option for the overall health of tomato plants.
The magnesium in Epsom salt helps to fix magnesium deficiency in tomato plants (which shows up as yellowing leaves with distinctive green veins). It also helps to improve the flavor!
When our garden was new, the tomatoes we harvested did not taste as good as the ones my mother-in-law grew.
Her garden was old, and well taken care of, while mine was young and nutrient deficient (we planted where had always been agricultural soil).
Now, after seven growing years, our tomatoes taste great too. My suspicion is that the lack of proper n nutrients in our garden soil produced less flavourful tomatoes.
Epsom salt contains magnesium and sulfur, which are also needed for plants to uptake vital nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Banana Peel Fertilizer
You can use potassium-rich banana peels for tomato plants. The banana peels have 42% potassium, which is an essential element of fertilizers in the plant.
Potassium deficiency shows up as blotchy ripening, as well as bright yellow leaf edges on otherwise green leaves.
Banana Peel Fertilizer can be made in several different ways. You can make a fertilizer tea, dried homemade fertilizer, or make a banana peel smoothie. Read here for three ways to make Banna Peel Fertilizer.
Conclusion
While the nitrogen content of coffee grounds is not high enough to use solely as a fertilizer for tomato plants, they still bring many valuable benefits to your garden.
The best way to add coffee grounds to your garden is by adding them to your compost bin.
Tomato seedlings will also benefit from coffee grounds, and adding them to your potting mix is a great idea. This organic material is found in a lot of our homes, so why not put it to good use?
Contact your local coffee shops if you aren’t a coffee drinker or don’t get enough grounds.
They might be happy for you to take coffee grounds off their hands. Instead of grounds ending up in the waste transfer stations, why not add them to your soil for a healthier garden?
The use of coffee grounds has been debated, and while they might not contain that much nitrogen, they still provide many benefits to the health of your soil.
Healthy soil equals healthy plants. If nothing else, they keep waste from going into transfer stations.