George.com wrote:
wrote in message
ps.com...

George.com wrote:
Thought I would share my experiences of using coffee grounds as a lawn
fertiliser this last spring.

Summer has (nigh on/almost/perhaps) arrived and almost drawn my 3 1/2
month
experiment using coffee grounds as a lawn fertiliser to a close. All in
all
I am quite pleased with the results.

My front lawn was looking very nice last autumn, until I accidently
scalped
it with a reel mower however. It never recovered in time before winter
and
had a infestation of moss over the cold months. The back lawn was not
quite
so nice but was coming along well in autumn and didn't get scalped.

The grass is a mixture of fescue, rye and bent grass (brown top), cool
season grasses so over spring they grew well and are starting to slow
down
with hotter weather appearing. Every week I get about 50 litres of used
grounds from a local cafe.

Once I had gotten the moss under control I started spreading the coffee
grounds on the lawn. To cover the entire lawn was about a 4-5 week
cycle. I
tried to apply them a day or 2 before rain so they would dry on the
surface
and be washed in by rainfall. I combined this with mulching the lawn
(not
using a catcher) and gradually lifting the blade height through spring.

The combination of the 3 has resulted in a very nice lush lawn with the
added bonus that the grasses, given the height of mowing, have been able
to
self seed in places. All is still not quite right on the front lawn.
There
are some bald patches I will have to oversow in autumn and I have yellow
clover (a spreading mat type clover that smothers out grasses) in it at
the
moment. All in all however I have found using coffee grounds, mulching
and
higher mowing beneficial.

As an aside, it is interesting to see the ebb and flow of lawn weeds
through
a series of years. I inherited a lawn with broadleaf weeds and alot of
couch. The broadleaf and couch are all but gone but replaced by other
types
of weed.

rob

Have you tested the PH? As I recall, coffee grinds were supposed to
be mildly acidic. I've been tossing mine on some rhododendrons.
Where do you get the grinds in volume?

the variety of literature I have reviewed says that coffee grounds have a
negligable effect of soil ph. In order to produce a significant shift would
require a large quantity.

There is also a variety of info on the web that says the grounds are
acidic, and are preferable for plants that prefer a lower PH. Which
is why I asked if you had checked the PH, because it would be
interesting to see what it is.



I have an arrangement with a local cafe to take
their grinds each week. They empty the shots in to plastic bags and leave
the bags out back for me to pick up.

rob