[Community_garden] Coffee grounds and community gardens

[Sunnye Dreyfus]

This dialogue has been so valuable for me.  I just started my own  
small business a year ago--Wormjava--I'll give you three  
guesses...and its not coffee.  : ) I am very much at the beginning  
stages of selling plant lightning in a bottle.  I'm not a trust fund  
baby, and I don't have a great soils lab doing experiments on every  
bottle. I don't have a lot of capital built up for research so I am  
relying on clients to give me feedback on how it works for them.

My product has been tested by UMass Soils Lab and it's very high in  
potassium, which they said was unusual for a liquid compost.  
(2--1--16).  I haven't done a pH test, and  I add a lot of coffee  
grounds.  In fact, part of my business involves renting out worm bins  
for smaller functions.  SO, I allotted two small bins for the Fair  
Trade Conference here in Boston last weekend.  They already had a  
composting service, so my bins served as a depository for coffee  
grounds and tea bags.  So, now would be the perfect time to do some  
tests!

On another note: I have drain flies in one of my bins.  They don't  
bother me, but they are a bit unnerving.  Anyone had experience in  
getting rid of them?  I bought some pheromone fly traps, but they  
aren't really doing much as the flies don't really go anywhere...

Thanks a million everyone!
Sunnye Dreyfus
Wormjava LLC

On Feb 21, 2007, at 10:24 AM, Don Boekelheide wrote:

> OK, so, would a consensus position be:
>
> In community gardens (which should all have compost
> piles if large enough, especially if we're growing
> veggies), we should happily gather up all the grounds
> we can from our local Buckies, Caribou, Peet's, indy,
> put them in our compost, and otherwise use grounds to
> help build soil.
>
> The partnerships we make with such places can help
> build support for community gardening, local food, and
> environmental stewardship (ie, I hit up my local
> Starbucks regularly to donate coffee for garden
> meetings - I help take care of their indoor coffee
> tree and (sometimes) haul off their grounds - this
> also keeps my mug filled for free).
>
> On coffee grounds in wormbins, time for some local
> experiments. My assumption that acidity caused
> problems probably wasn't accurate and needs testing.
> There may be problems, but for other reasons.
>
> BTW, I like that theory about weak vs. strong coffee
> depending on regional brewing preferences! LOL!
>
> Don Boekelheide
> Charlotte, NC
>
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Sunnye Dreyfus
Chief Worm Wrangler
Wormjava™, LLC
"A kick in the pants for your plants"™
wormjava at gmail.com
617-785-8401


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