coffee grounds

Hi Folks,

Coffee grounds, how much it too much for the compost?


And throw the filter in as well?



Thanks
Bart

Not sure if it is the correct thing to do, but I always throw in the filters. 

In terms of quantities, I'm not into measuring what goes into my compost. I just mix in a good variety of stuff ... shredded leaves, grass clippings (not too much), coffee grounds/filters, healthy plant material from the gardens and kitchen scraps (e.g., veggie greens/stems, banana peels, fruit skins and other parts, tea bags, bread, paper towels, etc. but no meat or fats). A lot of the things I use are considered "greens" so I try to balance that with "browns" in the form of shredded leaves and cardboard (e.g., toilet paper rolls). So far so good.

I am sure others on the forum can provide better guidance in terms of quantities of coffee grounds.

I have read anywhere from 5% to 35%.  Here is a fairly good article.  At the bottom there are references to various other articles.
http://ucanr.edu/blogs/blogcore/postdetail.cfm?postnum=12978

Bart wrote:Hi Folks,

Coffee grounds, how much it too much for the compost?


And throw the filter in as well?



Thanks
Bart

If you have too much for the compost, you can put it directly around all of your acid-loving plants. 

Acid Loving Fruits & Veggies

I put the filters in, then take some back out when they dry and store for use as pot liners. They don't last long. They decompose faster than newspaper.

My 2 cents:
Yes, through in the filters.  Doesn't hurt a thing.

Amount?  Well, that's a tricky question.  I'll concur with yolos to say 5-35%.  It kind of depends on what you're mixing it with.  As an example if you use the "compost calculators" as a guide and shoot for the "magical" 30:1 C:N ratio that generally provides the right balance of food and energy for bacteria and therefore a decent composting rate, you can mix paper to coffee 2:1 or 33% coffee to get desired ratio OR if you mix straw to coffee it's about 7:1 or 14% to get desired ratio.  
I'm currently "experimenting" with the 2:1 paper:coffee ratio in my tumbler, just to see how it turns out.  The other aspect to composting is mixture of components.  Using the paper to coffee thing or even leaves to coffee, that's only 2 components.  General rule of thumb for components is 5 different sources, so based on that I'd say shoot for no more than 20% of the total.

I use as much coffee as I can get, but "A" I don't have access to truck loads of it and "2" I don't normally measure things out very precisely.  I'm more like TD and just keep throwing stuff together as I get it.  Occasionally I'll measure stuff to try to get close to desired ratio.  Maybe this will help, in my experience adding coffee grounds to my piles generally will boost the heat generated by the pile, If I add coffee and it doesn't get warmer in a day or two it generally indicates I need add more "browns" so I'll throw in some leaves or straw as I flip it.... then again flipping on its own can help get it going heat wise as well.

So, in conclusion... yes?

I throw in grounds & filters. And I believe Jimmy Cee has an area that's ALL grounds. The worms apparently love it there!

Are you getting your grounds from a coffee shop? If not, don't worry about too much coffee ground. I put filters in too. Breaks down nicely.

I make Berkeley piles with 4-6 ingredients.  The current pile has 3 1/3 5-gallon buckets or coffee grounds in a total of 69.3 5-gallon buckets total, or a little less than 5%.  This pile has leaves (27 buckets), straw fines (11), horse manure (13), alfalfa hay 10 1/2), produce (4 1/2) and coffee (3 1/3).

PS I forgot that I cleaned out the cupboard and frig/freezer of outdated foods, but that part was minimal.

I see you belong to The Bucket Brigade way of measuring things, sanderson.

I often do that too. Easy, innit?

I have a one foot space between my 2 compost bins. In it I keep coffee grinds, sometime up to maybe 4 to 500 lbs..I sometimes forget it's there, however, most of the time I'll toss a few shovels in when turning piles..It's alive with wigglers and possibly other small worms...They had to come from horse and cowm manure that I added...