My Tiny Plot

I usually throw my coffee grounds in with the kitchen waste and they eventually end up in the compost bin. Yesterday, however, after I’d made my morning coffee I looked at the grounds and thought, I know, I’ll put them on my Blueberries.

Why? well mostly because they make the soil look all black and neat like new compost, but also because I understood that coffee grounds, being acidic, would make a lovely mulch for my acid-loving Blueberries. Makes sense huh?

I mentioned this on Twitter and got a reply that said when you make the coffee (ie run water through the grounds) that all of the acid is washed away. I’m not a coffee ground expert and I haven’t done said experiments myself so I turned to Google to show me the way.

It seems there is some confusion in the matter. Some sites say that grounds are virtually neutral by the time they hit the ground making them nothing better than a good mulch and worm fodder. Other sites insist that these tests were flawed and that coffee grounds are indeed acidic.

Well, I for one, am confused. Should I be wandering around the garden in my slippers at 8am on a Saturday morning with a pot of used coffee grounds in my hand or should I just chuck em in the kitchen compost as usual.

I’m thinking if they are acidic then the Blueberries are loving it. And if they’re not then the worms are loving it instead and the Blueberries are like, “it’s about time the worms got something, they have a hell of time of it.” But I can’t really say either way.

And… who knew that coffee grounds could be so useful outside the garden?

Plants have a one-track mind. All they want to do is reproduce. Sometimes we forget this. But sometimes it’s so blatantly obvious that we can’t avoid it.

Take my Blueberries for instance. These two plants are the same variety (Chandler), the same size, planted at the same time in the same sized pots, into the same ericaceous compost. One of them, however, has ripened all its berries and had them picked. After which it has promptly gone into Autumn mode in a bid to conserve energy for next year’s bee fest. The other one still has berries to ripen and is still looking all lovely and luscious.

Blueberries eh? Whodathought it?

We’re continuing with the opening up of the former fruit patch and we’re about half way there (when I say we, of course I mean Ryan). The plan is to leave most of the bushes intact but to remove some strategic specimens to create lovely wide beds that will house the big stuff next year, such as sweetcorn, pumpkins, and main crop potatoes - leaving mtp free for the more delicate crops such as salad leaves. We already have a line of very successful summer raspberries but I plan to add an ‘even more successful’ line of autumn raspberries - I’m thinking Autumn Bliss (or the variety that Monty was talking about last week Joan something). We’ll also be extending our fruiting bush portfolio into the blackberry market, either Oregon Thornless or Bedford Giant if I’m feeling adventurous. Maybe even dabbling in a few blueberries - we’ll see how the funds go.