Wednesday 3 October 2018

Coffee Please

Recycling coffee grounds is the 'in' thing . Even we can avail ourselves of this free fertiliser. 



La Frianderie
This is the only coffee shop I know that leaves its grounds out for passersby.  It is also the best coffee shop in the area.  The baristas has obviously taken a coffee course.  The capuccino is hot, freshly brewed with the aroma of the finest of coffee beans.

Every morning there is a stream of customers who come straight off the car ferry and across the road for their morning coffee and hot snack, cheese or spinach pies with different pastries and fillings, before continuing on to work or travel on the mainland.

Good on them for leaving out their coffee grounds!

I had no idea that coffee grounds could be used as fertiliser until I researched last winter how to turn my hydrangeas blue.  The coffee grounds work by the way.  I had a pink flower turn purple last spring and hopefully I'll have 2 next year.

I scatter our daily filter coffee grounds, grind up egg shells, compost everything vegetable and soon I'll be putting wood ash from the stove on the garden too.

I used to bury fish bones but cats kept on digging them up no matter how much I covered them

Downtown the oil used for frying in tavernas is also collected and recycled.  There is a collection service so oil is no longer just dumped in the sea or on land and hopefully it encourages tavernas to change their oil more often too.

We are also encouraged, us by our grandchildren, to recycle plastic, glass tins and paper. There are special big blue bins all over the island.

19 comments:

  1. Recycling is big here at the moment. When I go on my morning walk I take a bucket and "pickerupperer" and pick up the rubbish and put it in with ours.

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    1. Bravo! Something my mother used to do . I remember doing my first recycling ever with my father in NZ , must be over 20 years ago.

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  2. I have a lot of grounded coffee here, I think i shall try do something with it.

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    1. I have been putting coffee grounds in pots and on the garden all summer.

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  3. I keep a compost bucket outside the kitchen door, and all used Tea bags and Coffee grounds go into it. My vegs are always grateful.

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    1. We don't drink much tea but I remember an elderly aunt always put her tea bags in a bucket of water and used it to water her flowers. I can't remember whether she put it on the roses or the hydrangeas.

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  4. if you cant get grit for seed sowing you can add coffee grinds to the mix. It is excellent stuff isnt it. Most cafes if you take your own bowl or bucket they will give it away to you as they pay for their rubbish to be collected

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    1. I hope you can't overdo the coffee grounds because our garden gets a good dosing over the winter. We drink a lot of filter coffee... and greek coffee always leaves an inch of mud in the bottom of the cup

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    2. used coffee grounds are PH neutral and will aerate the soil and add bulk good for clay soil. never add unused to the soil as they are acidic and could kill some plants. as long as they have had boiling water on them they are fine. I never had much success for stopping slugs with it, but some people say it works.

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  5. All this recycling is wonderful.

    Think I have heard about coffee grounds...

    Very interesting, that they changed your hydrangea's "habits"! ,-)

    ✨ 🍁 🎃 🍁 ✨

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    1. The coffee changes the Ph of the soil and the hydrangeas change colour

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  6. I put coffee grounds round my blueberry bushes, they seem to like it!

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    1. I spread it around. The oxalis just loves coffee!!!

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  7. It’s great when everyone starts to recycle and reuse
    It’s got to be better for the environment and can save everyone lots of money
    As soon as the weather turns better and stays that way I’ll be outside doing all my gardening things. So I best start having real coffee and saving my coffee grounds!

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    1. The hydrangeas this summer bloomed for a long time. I cut off the flowers and they grew a mass of green leaves. They are still green now yet usually in autumn they have already started to look like bare sticks. I presume the coffee is helping

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  8. yes I've heard of coffee grounds being good for the garden, there are a few cafes here and there around NZ that happily give away their old coffee grounds to anyone that wants them.

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    1. I had no idea about coffee till doing research on the hydrangeas. I knew about eggshells. Makes me wonder what else I throw away that could be put on the garden though most things do go on the compost if they're vegetable, even leftover greek salad with the oil

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  9. good to hear of more re-using and recycling. Its desperately needed

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