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Google
Starbucks for coffee grounds!
+12
countrynaturals
llama momma
Dan in Ct
yolos
ralitaco
has55
OhioGardener
No_Such_Reality
southern gardener
Lindacol
boffer
sanderson
16 posters
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Starbucks for coffee grounds!
The Starbucks manager not only gave me a heavy bag of used coffee grounds, he double bagged it and carried it out to my car, all with a smile! The grounds are super fine compared to drip ground Folgers that I used to use, so I bet it will blend nicely.
I tried a waffle house for egg shells but they didn't want the liability of giving me their "garbage." Any suggestions on obtaining egg shells?
I tried a waffle house for egg shells but they didn't want the liability of giving me their "garbage." Any suggestions on obtaining egg shells?
Last edited by camprn on 5/20/2013, 6:17 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Corrected title)
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
We frequently hear about the liability issue, and it's a shame.
For eggshells, how about hitting up organizations that do special breakfasts on occasion to raise money, like churches, firehouses, fraternal clubs, etc.
Be on your toes though, they might want to trade their shells for some of your time at the grill!
For eggshells, how about hitting up organizations that do special breakfasts on occasion to raise money, like churches, firehouses, fraternal clubs, etc.
Be on your toes though, they might want to trade their shells for some of your time at the grill!
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
The first Starbucks I tried said no. The 2nd one said I needed to call a day ahead & I don't go that way often. The 3rd one (which actually happens to be the closest - but I don't go that way often and don't drink coffee so it took me a while to find) double bagged all they had for me.
For eggshells you might try small cafes or individual type(non chain) restaurants or maybe a small bakery. Hey I noticed Starbucks had delicious looking baked goodies. Anyone know if they do the baking?
For eggshells you might try small cafes or individual type(non chain) restaurants or maybe a small bakery. Hey I noticed Starbucks had delicious looking baked goodies. Anyone know if they do the baking?
Lindacol- Posts : 773
Join date : 2011-01-23
Location : Bloomington, CA
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Good idea about the organizations hosting fund raising breakfasts. Only thing is that they may use ready-mix eggs from a carton. Here's hoping.
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Lindacol wrote:The first Starbucks I tried said no. The 2nd one said I needed to call a day ahead & I don't go that way often. The 3rd one (which actually happens to be the closest - but I don't go that way often and don't drink coffee so it took me a while to find) double bagged all they had for me.
For eggshells you might try small cafes or individual type(non chain) restaurants or maybe a small bakery. Hey I noticed Starbucks had delicious looking baked goodies. Anyone know if they do the baking?
I'm surprised they said no! Every time we go, there's a bucket out front that says "free for your garden", it's full of bagged grounds. Then, if you go inside they're usually more than happy to bag up whatever they have. We get quite a bit at a time when we do go, but it's not that often...
southern gardener- Posts : 1883
Join date : 2011-06-21
Age : 44
Location : california, zone 10a
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
I picked up a bag of grounds today. Haven't for a while.
This bag is meh.
It's not coffee. Well mostly not coffee. There's a bit of coffee. There's virtually no spent espresso pucks. It's almost entirely a bag of the big sealed tea bags. Fruity smelling, some purplish. Some orangey brown.
Do the bags break down well? Do earth worms bore through them readily or do I need to rip open all these stupid bags. If you haven't seen them, they're about the size of a office foil coffee pack for the industrial drip pots, but kind of coffee filter material, a little fibrous feeling.
Sigh, kind of a PITA.
This bag is meh.
It's not coffee. Well mostly not coffee. There's a bit of coffee. There's virtually no spent espresso pucks. It's almost entirely a bag of the big sealed tea bags. Fruity smelling, some purplish. Some orangey brown.
Do the bags break down well? Do earth worms bore through them readily or do I need to rip open all these stupid bags. If you haven't seen them, they're about the size of a office foil coffee pack for the industrial drip pots, but kind of coffee filter material, a little fibrous feeling.
Sigh, kind of a PITA.
No_Such_Reality- Posts : 665
Join date : 2011-04-22
Location : Orange County, CA aka Disneyland or Sunset zone 22
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
No_Such_Reality wrote:Do the bags break down well? Do earth worms bore through them readily or do I need to rip open all these stupid bags.
Yes, they decompose fairly fast. I have gotten bags of them and dumped them in the compost tumbler, and they break down in no time at all. I have also buried them in the gardens (Cathole composting?) and the earthworms burrow right through the filter material to get to the grounds.
On occasion when I pick up grounds at Starbucks the bag includes a large filter bag of grounds that were used for cold pressed coffee. This bag takes longer to decompose, but it still decomposes over time. The expresso pucks, on the other hand, I have to manually break up in order to get them to decompose or get eaten by the earthworms.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
This being CA, there's a Starbuck's every mile. I swear everyone loves that burnt-tasting, over-priced stuff.
I dance on the bags to break up the pucks and then watch as I dump the bags into the compost batch, watching for miscellaneous items like filter, straw, plastic lids, etc. Photo of me dancing in cold February in layered pj's, sweats and old tennis used just for composting.
I dance on the bags to break up the pucks and then watch as I dump the bags into the compost batch, watching for miscellaneous items like filter, straw, plastic lids, etc. Photo of me dancing in cold February in layered pj's, sweats and old tennis used just for composting.
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
sanderson wrote: watch as I dump the bags into the compost batch, watching for miscellaneous items like filter, straw, plastic lids, etc.
One time I found a lid for a 5 gallon plastic bucket in the bag of grounds. It is not unusual to find plastic lids for cups in the grounds, though.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
No_Such_Reality- Posts : 665
Join date : 2011-04-22
Location : Orange County, CA aka Disneyland or Sunset zone 22
Caffeinated Raised Beds
Ever since I cleaned the raised beds and planted cover crops on them for the winter, I have had a problem with a neighborhood cat (or maybe more than one) that was tramping on the beds and digging holes in them. On Tuesday I brought home two big bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks, separated the paper filters from it, and then lightly spread the coffee grounds over all of the beds. Haven't seen the cats, or their damage, on the beds since. I still see cat footprints in the snow around the beds, but they haven't gotten on the soil of the beds. Hopefully those caffeinated beds will keep the cats at bay. I'll probably replenish the grounds every few weeks, or once a month, to see if it continues to discourage the felines.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Interesting. Keep us posted. I think there is a thread about keeping cats out of beds. Maybe I will try to find it after my nap. . .
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
sanderson wrote:Maybe I will try to find it after my nap. . .
First things first!
I just did another search, and found one titled "Cats in the Garden" that was last posted to in 2014 - I read through that one, and didn't see anyone trying coffee grounds. I have used coffee grounds for years to keep slugs away from plants, but had never thought of it for cats until I read this article:
Coffee As a Repellent
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
It has now been almost 3 weeks since I put coffee grounds on the raised beds to see if it would keep the cats off of them, and the cats have not bothered the beds since then. This week, I am going to sprinkle some new grounds on the beds to see if it continues to discourage the neighborhood cats. Hopefully, it will.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
OhioGardener wrote:It has now been almost 3 weeks since I put coffee grounds on the raised beds to see if it would keep the cats off of them, and the cats have not bothered the beds since then. This week, I am going to sprinkle some new grounds on the beds to see if it continues to discourage the neighborhood cats. Hopefully, it will.
they won't get in those beds. Something about any product like large wood mulch, coffee or large sticks or pvc pipe placed on the ground prevent them from doing their thing. they will go on mulch leaves. I have used 1/2 inch to one inch PVC pipe placed in various direction or my SFG PVC grid to keep them out of the beds in a pinch.
has55- Posts : 2345
Join date : 2012-05-10
Location : Denton, tx
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
OhioGardener wrote:This is what happens when one stops at 3 Starbucks on the way home on Wednesday evening. That is a 6 cu ft wheelbarrow, and it is totally full of coffee grounds. Surprisingly, the bags of grounds today had no plastic, and almost no filters. Just lots of coffee. Looks like I'll be busy tomorrow....
ralitaco- Posts : 1303
Join date : 2010-04-04
Location : Southport , NC
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
ralitaco wrote:OhioGardener wrote:This is what happens when one stops at 3 Starbucks on the way home on Wednesday evening. That is a 6 cu ft wheelbarrow, and it is totally full of coffee grounds. Surprisingly, the bags of grounds today had no plastic, and almost no filters. Just lots of coffee. Looks like I'll be busy tomorrow....
No filters, no fair. I hate handling the filters. I usually rip them up into smaller pieces which takes quite a bit of time and is quite messy.
yolos- Posts : 4139
Join date : 2011-11-20
Age : 74
Location : Brooks, Ga Zone 7B/8A
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
OhioGardener, just one question, is that a brand new wheelbarrow? Here they bag the grounds up and a second question if they bag them up in Ohio, how many bags does it take to get 6 cubic feet? Here the closest Starbucks to me has you call the day before and they will save them for you. I have gone into another Starbucks in town and gotten a couple of bags without notice. Weather is warming and I am hoping to set up my worms in the garage for the season and increasing the scope from 2 - 10 gallon totes to several during the season. The benefits of the castings makes it worth the effort. Thanks for the post and once again the inspiration.
Dan in Ct- Posts : 295
Join date : 2014-08-10
Location : Ct Zone 6A
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Dan, yes that is a fairly new wheelbarrow - it is a 6Ft3 steel one with a wide flat free tire one that I got from A.M. Leonard while they had free shipping. Love it!
I picked up 5 big bags of grounds from Starbucks to fill that wheelbarrow - and, the bags were heavy! We have 3 Starbucks in the nearby town, plus 2 Kroger stores with Starbucks kiosks (which only have the very small bags of grounds). The 3 stores all operate differently on handling their grounds: One puts the bags on the walk by the back door and anyone can drive by and pick them up; One has a large can in the entryway where they put the grounds, and anyone can pick them up out of the can; and One you have to ask at the counter and they collect all of them that they have and give them to you. Yesterday, the one that puts them at the back door had 2 full bags; the one that puts them in a can by the front door had 2 full bags; and the one that you have to ask had one bag nearly full. Neither of the Kroger stores had any - in one of the Kroger stores the lady that runs the floral dept also uses coffee grounds and she normally gets the grounds before they are made available to public.
There is a Starbucks in a Kroger store about 25 miles from us that collects their grounds in the 5 gallon buckets from the bakery department, and then give them out. I am occasionally in that area and love picking up some new buckets!
If you can do worm castings, by all means do it! There is no richer fertilizer than worm castings. I have an old bathtub that I can use for worms in the summer months, and it is incredible the amount of castings they produce. I wish I could keep them all winter, but I don't have a heated place to keep them. The worms love the coffee grounds AND the filters. I also freely sprinkle the grounds (without filters) on top of the gardens, and at night the night crawlers come up and get the grounds to pull down into the soil and turn into castings.
I picked up 5 big bags of grounds from Starbucks to fill that wheelbarrow - and, the bags were heavy! We have 3 Starbucks in the nearby town, plus 2 Kroger stores with Starbucks kiosks (which only have the very small bags of grounds). The 3 stores all operate differently on handling their grounds: One puts the bags on the walk by the back door and anyone can drive by and pick them up; One has a large can in the entryway where they put the grounds, and anyone can pick them up out of the can; and One you have to ask at the counter and they collect all of them that they have and give them to you. Yesterday, the one that puts them at the back door had 2 full bags; the one that puts them in a can by the front door had 2 full bags; and the one that you have to ask had one bag nearly full. Neither of the Kroger stores had any - in one of the Kroger stores the lady that runs the floral dept also uses coffee grounds and she normally gets the grounds before they are made available to public.
There is a Starbucks in a Kroger store about 25 miles from us that collects their grounds in the 5 gallon buckets from the bakery department, and then give them out. I am occasionally in that area and love picking up some new buckets!
If you can do worm castings, by all means do it! There is no richer fertilizer than worm castings. I have an old bathtub that I can use for worms in the summer months, and it is incredible the amount of castings they produce. I wish I could keep them all winter, but I don't have a heated place to keep them. The worms love the coffee grounds AND the filters. I also freely sprinkle the grounds (without filters) on top of the gardens, and at night the night crawlers come up and get the grounds to pull down into the soil and turn into castings.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Can you elaborate on what you do with the bathtub?OhioGardener wrote:...I have an old bathtub that I can use for worms in the summer months...
I am about to remodel a bathroom and have a good sized tub. I was thinking of trying to do a koi pond, but may do instead.
ralitaco- Posts : 1303
Join date : 2010-04-04
Location : Southport , NC
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
ralitaco wrote:Can you elaborate on what you do with the bathtub?OhioGardener wrote:...I have an old bathtub that I can use for worms in the summer months...
I am about to remodel a bathroom and have a good sized tub.
Well, being a Simple Old Man, I do things as easy as possible. It is an old cast iron enameled bathtub that was taken out of the house years ago. tt is sitting on a couple 4"x4" boards, and it is covered with an old piece of plywood with a couple cement blocks to keep it from blowing off. I put a piece of screen wire over the drain, and one over the overflow hole to block varmints from getting in. The screen on the drain hole allows excess moisture to drain out. Then I put a couple inches of dampened coir on the bottom of the tub, and added the worms. I start at the deep end of the tub and dump the kitchen scraps on top of the coir, and cover them with wet newspaper. Every few days I dump more kitchen scraps in next to the previous day's scraps, and keep moving down towards the other end of the tub. When I have reached the end of the tub, I start going back the other direction. The worms keep moving with the food as it is digested, and by the end of summer I have about 40 gallons of beautiful worm castings to work into the gardens. I save many of the worms for next year's crop by putting them in the compost storage bin, where they seem to thrive.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
Ohio Gardener, I like your bathtub idea. Is it in a shady area outside? How did you deal with Ohio summer heat? Curious because I'm in central Ohio and hesitant putting worms outside. Had a lot of containers in my basement for a couple years, then got out of it. I'd still like to try an outdoor set up.
llama momma
Certified SFG Instructor- Posts : 4914
Join date : 2010-08-20
Location : Central Ohio zone 6a
Re: Starbucks for coffee grounds!
llama momma wrote:Ohio Gardener, I like your bathtub idea. Is it in a shady area outside? How did you deal with Ohio summer heat? Curious because I'm in central Ohio and hesitant putting worms outside. Had a lot of containers in my basement for a couple years, then got out of it. I'd still like to try an outdoor set up.
Yes, it sits against the north side of the detached garage, so it never gets the direct sun on it. The design of the old cast iron bathtub provides pretty good insulation, though. The front of it has about 3" of air space between the inner tub and the outer decorative cover. And, each end has a piece of plywood cut to shape to hide the open ends and keep cats, dogs, etc., from crawling under it, so that provides some insulation as well. Even in the July/August hot period, the worm bedding seems to stay damp and cool. The old plywood laying on top if it is somewhat warped, so it does not make it air tight.
"In short, the soil food web feeds everything you eat and helps keep your favorite planet from getting too hot. Be nice to it." ~ Diane Miessler, "Grow Your Soil"
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