At the heart of every morning cup of coffee and every egg for breakfast, there is an untapped resource waiting to be discovered.
No, we’re not talking about some superfood, but rather what we tend to throw away: coffee grounds and eggshells, these two often underestimated kitchen waste can turn into real treasures for gardeners.
Rich in essential nutrients, coffee grounds and eggshells can help keep your soil and plants healthy while reducing your ecological footprint, so how do you use this valuable waste in gardening?
What are their benefits and how can they help improve the health of your garden?
Use of coffee in gardening
Coffee grounds are an excellent natural fertilizer for garden plants, they are rich in nutrients such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, which are essential for healthy plant growth, coffee is also acidic, which can help reduce soil alkalinity and create an environment conducive to plant growth.
To use coffee as a fertilizer, you can simply spread the coffee grounds around your plants or mix it with the soil, add coffee to your compost to improve the quality of your compost.
Using Eggshells in Gardening
Eggshells are a great way to enrich your soil with calcium, an important nutrient for plant growth, in addition to containing calcium, eggshells also contain other beneficial minerals such as magnesium and potassium, these minerals help strengthen the roots of your plants and improve their resistance to disease and pests.
Eggshells can help repel pests such as slugs and snails, thanks to their abrasive texture, eggshells can prevent pests from creeping up on your plants and damaging them.
To use eggshells in your garden, there are several simple methods. You can start by grinding them into small pieces and spreading them around your plants, this will release the minerals gradually into the soil and nourish your plants throughout their life cycle, if you have a compost you can also add eggshells to your mixture to increase its calcium and mineral content.
You can create a natural fertilizer by placing the eggshells in a container filled with water for a few days, the water will dissolve the minerals in the eggshells creating a nutrient rich liquid fertilizer you can use this fertilizer to water your plants and give them an extra boost.
The benefits of coffee grounds for the garden
Coffee grounds are a great addition to any garden due to their many benefits. First of all, it is rich in nitrogen, an essential nutrient for plant growth, which makes coffee grounds a very effective natural fertilizer, it contains other important minerals like potassium and phosphorus, which also contribute to plant health, it helps improve soil structure.
By incorporating it into your soil it improves its ability to hold water, which can be especially beneficial in sandy soils, it is known for its role in repelling certain pests, slugs, snails and certain types many ants are repelled by the coffee grounds, thus attracting beneficial earthworms, which help to further improve the quality of the soil by aerating it and incorporating organic matter, it is a valuable resource for any gardener concerned of the environment.
Using coffee and eggshells in gardening is an eco-friendly practice that can provide many benefits for your plants and soil, coffee grounds provide a valuable source of nitrogen and help improve the soil structure while repelling some pests, eggshells, on the other hand, are an excellent source of calcium, an essential nutrient for plant growth, and can be used as a physical barrier against pests like slugs, note that these two products are not miracle cures and should be used as part of a larger, well-thought-out gardening strategy.
Before applying these amendments, it can be useful to have your soil analyzed to understand exactly what nutrients it lacks, coffee and eggshells can be valuable allies for any gardener concerned about the environment and wishing to enhance the kitchen scraps.
