I can definitely see where that would make a difference!

Gymgirl said:I can collect up to 60 lbs. of grounds a week here...I have to mix them in.

I rarely have coffee grounds. But I am sure they would be good if I did. But I am not about to go collect them from anyplace selling coffee. I have enough to do just to take care of my garden, myself and my dog.

When I asked at McDonald's (for egg shells and coffee) the cashier told me to drop in someday before 6 AM. Really? I'm sound asleep!

pirl said:When I asked at McDonald's (for egg shells and coffee) the cashier told me to drop in someday before 6 AM. Really? I'm sound asleep!

Me too!!

They can't possibly crack 1,000 eggs before 6 AM. Even if they did, holding them at room temperature would violate health rules. I figured they'd be doing it all day long.

Perhaps these are shells from the previous day, and they want you there early enough so that you don't disrupt the every-day duties of the employees.

I'll never know, Ken! I have no intentions of being awake at 6 AM just to get them.

I'm with you, Arlene. I value my sleep more than egg shells and coffee grounds.

But it's for the GARDEN !!

The garden will have to live with the 6 or 8 eggs a week it gets along with our coffee grounds. It's done fine so far.

Starbucks is really good about giving huge garbage bags of coffee grounds. And they don't require 6 am pickup. Just ask the manager when is good time. Usually 10:00 and 3:00.
I think that my best gardening skills are being a compost specialist and watching the weather.

I get my coffee grounds from a local coffee shop. It is on my way home from work. The grounds are organic. The staff are really nice. They appreciate me coming & carting away their coffee grounds as there is less for them to lug to the garbage bin, so they always greet me with a smile! (And their coffee & croissants are to die for.) Now that I know I can just incorporate the grounds in the top few inches of soil in my garden, I'll be stopping on my way home from work to drop them off at the community garden. : )

But @Newyorkrita, I do know the feeling of something being just "too much"! For me, tending a pristine golf course like green lawn is "too much". We have a nicely tended lawn of weeds!

Judy,
If you're the compost specialist, may I pick your brain?

I've had two Geobin composters in place for almost 1.5 years now, and, I've only used the compost once, last season on a small raised bed.

My compost material of choice has been shredded leaves, spent coffee grounds, and veggie peels. In addition to the Geobins, I have three 35-gallon Brute trashcans that I drilled holes ALL over. In the beginning, I rotated the compost between the three Brutes, and that was working ok. They never heated up because there wasn't enough mass, but, I wasn't in a hurry.

The two Geobins have heated up to an average of 110° over these years, and once or twice got as high as 135° for a couple days. I keep trying to get the heat up, but, since I don't turn these huge bins, well, it's a slow breakdown.

To date, I just keep adding shredded bags of leaves from my neighbors, or that I collect on the curb. The Geobins have alternated between looking crumbly and ready, looking like moist mud, and looking like a dry leaf pile.

I need serious advice...

It hasn't rained since last week, and, I'm thinking of tackling both the Geobins. One is only half full of what looks like dark semi-moist mud. I haven't added any new leaves to it. Should I break that up and try to sift out what's ready? Then, work with the 2nd bin that has a mix of totally finished compost at the bottom, and pull off all the new stuff I've added, tossing that into the (hopefull) empty bin #1?

Help....please....help......

I put whole leaves all over my garden last year as well as green grass. And it is still sitting there. Since I have plants growing in the beds all I can think to do is dig trenches and rake the stuff there and cover it . It is far too wet to grind. I was trying to keep the weeds down with the grass.

About coffee grounds, they are used to acidify the soil so don't you have to be careful how much you use. You might develop too acid a soil for what you want to grow. Okay for rhodys, azaleas, peonies, etc but not for all plants.

A couple of years ago I ran a pH on coffee grounds and found that they were nearly neutral. Perhaps the acidity is in the coffee itself rather than in the grounds.

drdawg said:A couple of years ago I ran a pH on coffee grounds and found that they were nearly neutral. Perhaps the acidity is in the coffee itself rather than in the grounds.

That agrees with information I found when searching the web to see how beneficial coffee grounds would be for acidifying the soil for my blueberry plants -- they really don't do that much to change the pH.

It might be another one of those myths.

It IS a myth. Spent coffee grounds have almost a neutral pH.

This myth runs in the same camp as the myth about arsenic in pressure treated lumber. Arsenic is no longer used in pressure treated lumber, which is NOW perfectly safe to use to build raised garden beds....

Google. It does a body good.

Another outdated factoid is that "vermiculite from some mines has small amounts of asbestos".

Not any more. Those mines have all been closed for years or decades. Now all vermiculite is asbestos-free.

We need a "Garden Mythbusters" thread!