There’s nothing like a fresh cup of coffee to really wake you up in the morning.
However, once you’ve made your pot, don’t throw away the used coffee grounds.
After they’ve helped make the energy-giving java, you need to get your day started; those used grounds can still be of service in several ways.
Check out these fantastic suggestions on how you can recycle your used coffee grounds!
Gardening
1. Pest Repellent
Do you suffer from unwanted pests in your garden?
Just sprinkle used coffee grounds around your plants to give them protection against many destructive garden pests like snails, ants, and slugs.
Ants find the smell of coffee repulsive, while the slightly rough texture of the coffee grounds can irritate soft-bellied pests like snails and slugs.
You can even mix the grounds with dried orange peel to keep away some mammals such as cats. Or, you can use rosemary oil.
Make sure you soak your used coffee grounds in water overnight to extract more of that coffee goodness, then strain your grounds.
Best of all, you can use the weak coffee liquid in a foliar spray. The spray will have antimicrobial properties that will also help repel many insects, such as caterpillars.
2. Garden Fertilizer
Acid-loving plants such as azaleas, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, camellias, and roses can benefit from used coffee.
Just mix your old grounds with dead grass clipping, brown leaves, or dry straw to help neutralize a bit of the acidity. Then spread them around your plants.
The used coffee grounds add potassium and nitrogen to the soil, as well as a boost of magnesium, which all plants need to stay healthy.
However, please remember that this fertilizer will lack phosphorus and calcium, so it’s not ideal for blooming or fruit-bearing plants.
You’ll also need to add some wood ash or lime to the mix if you want to make the ultimate coffee ground fertilizer.
3. Change The Color Of Your Hydrangeas
Are you bored with the color of your Hydrangeas?
Well, guess what?
You can change their color using dried coffee grounds.
Hydrangeas can bloom in many different colors ranging from bright blue to bright pink. The color depends on the pH levels of the soil. Alkaline soil produces pink flowers while acidic soil turns hydrangea petals blue.
The coffee grounds acidifies your soil and can help you create some lovely blue hydrangeas.
4. Compost
You can also throw your used coffee grounds into your compost heap for later use.
Coffee grounds make for excellent “green” matter as they are rich in nitrogen. Plus, they can attract beneficial worms to your compost.
But, be sure to limit the number of grounds that you add to your pile, so not to throw off the ratio of “green” to “brown” matter.
5. Coffee For Your Carrots?
Did you know that carrots love coffee even more than humans do?
So if you love both carrots and coffee, then you’re in luck!
Your carrots will love you back if you share your old grounds with them while planting them.
Before you sow your carrot seeds, mix them up with some old dried coffee grounds to give them a super energy boost right from the get-go!
You’ll grow bigger and better carrots with the added bonus of deterring carrot-munching pests that want to dine on your delicious vegetables before you do.
6. Grow Your Own Mushrooms
You can grow your own Oyster mushrooms using a five-gallon bucket full of coffee grounds.
You’ll need to drink a lot of coffee or get your hands on some of your neighbors’ used coffee grounds to make this work. You can also ask your local coffee shop for some of theirs.
You can check out the full how-to guide at Five Gallon Ideas.
Using Old Coffe Grounds Around The House
7. Get Rid Of Odors
One neat trick for getting rid of smelly odors is to employ used coffee grounds. They work much like baking soda does to absorb food odors in your fridge and freezer.
Just load up a small open container with some old grounds and place it in the back of your freezer or fridge.
Then forget about it for a couple of weeks while you collect more used grounds.
As a bonus, you can re-use grounds from your fridge or freezer and toss them in your compost heap or fertilizer!
8. All-Natural Abrasive
Sprinkle some old coffee grounds onto an old cleaning cloth and use them to scrub away stubborn stuck-on food from counters or dishes.
The abrasive nature of coffee grounds power through dried-on messes but are not so abrasive as to damage surfaces. Just be sure to not accidentally scrub grounds into cracks where they can leave behind tough to clean stains.
9. Homemade Coffee Candles
Do you just love the smell of coffee?
Then you’ll love turning your old coffee grounds into delicious smelling homemade candles.
For this fun recycling project, you’ll need a small paper coffee cup, a paper towel, about a cup of wax candle ends, scissors, a wick, a small saucepan for melting wax, a small glass mixing bowl, and of course your used coffee grounds.
Here’s a how-to guide for making your candles.
10. Clean Out Your Fireplace With Coffee
Do you hate the chore of cleaning out your fireplace?
Well, now you can use your old coffee grounds to make this mess chore much more manageable.
The grounds will do most of the work for you, just gently scatter them over the ashes to weigh them down. This prevents the vast clouds of smoke that often arise when cleaning a fireplace.
Not only will scooping the ashes be easier than before, but you also won’t have to worry about wiping down every horizontal surface in the room after you finish!
Here’s a video with some more handy ideas for recycling your used coffee grounds.
Did you like the cups shown in the picture above? Well, those cups are also made out of used coffee grounds! Here’s a video showing you how it’s done. Enjoy!
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